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.

I understand that Detroit was a pretty rough place to grow up in the '70s and '80s.

NASA needs to focus on the things that are really important and that we do not know how to do. The agency is a pioneering force, and that is where its competitive advantage lies.

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

The society of life on Mars, or the challenge of making Mars more livable, will have significant benefits on our attempts to modify and change in some ways the environment here on Earth.

When we set out to land people on the surface of Mars, I think we should as a nation, as a world, commit ourselves to supporting a growing settlement and colonization there. To visit a few times and then withdraw would be an unforgivable waste of resources.

Let's not spend resources that we don't need to be sending astronauts back to the moon. Let's not spend expensive resources on bringing people who have reached Mars back again. Prepare them to become a growing colony.