We really didn't devote a lot of time to investigating the scariest aspects of our flight. It was more challenging and productive to concentrate on the remedies, and leave things that couldn't be solved to happen without thinking about them. There is a morbid human curiosity associated with tragic death-producing events. Though naturally, this needs to be kept in perspective.

Six out of seven times we landed successfully [on the Moon]. I wanted to be a part of that and I was a part of that, so my personal feeling is of great gratefulness for having somehow been in a position to have been given the opportunity to be on that first landing. That's a marvelous experience for a little kid that grew up in New Jersey. So I'm very thankful, and I asked the whole world to give thanks once we successfully landed.

Computers allow us to squeeze the most out of everything, whether it's Google looking up things, so I guess that tends to make us a little lazy about reading books and doing things the hard way to understand how those things work.

Retain the vision for space exploration. If we turn our backs on the vision again, we're going to have to live in a secondary position in human space flight for the rest of the century.

I'm in favor of changing the destination of humans. There are a lot of manned missions that can be done, but not in the direction of the moon.

I would rather people understand that there is a very, very fortunate American who was given the opportunity, and was in the right place at the right time to have the moment of a lifetime. My mother was born - her name was Marianne Moon. And she was born in 1903, the year that the Wright Brothers first flew.

Timing has always been a key element in my life. I have been blessed to have been in the right place at the right time.