Most people never believed in the real possibility of going to the moon, and neither did I until I was in my twenties.

You need propellants to accelerate toward Mars, then to decelerate at Mars, again to re-accelerate from Mars to Earth, and finally to decelerate back at Earth. Accordingly, the mass of these required propellants, in short, drives our need for innovative launch vehicles.

To appropriately respond to an emergency requires a very clear mind, to cooly analyze what the observations are and how to fix it.

I'm sure that there are places in the deserts in Australia that could be similar to where we might want to go on Mars.

Training was very extensive, and we dealt with many recoveries from emergencies, and fortunately, participating and observing and existing through the reality of space was a once-in-a-lifetime experience and it was not marred by unexpected hazards or catastrophes.

For the future, primarily, we must educate people in science, engineering, technology and math.

There are a lot of people that get interested in something, and they hear about it, and they read about it, and then they watch it happen, and that's why I had quite an interest in the lottery because you'd interest a lot of people, and then just a few would win a chance to do something.