The g-forces increased and I wasn't able to continue to hold the camera against the window, so I had to lay it back against my chest, but still continued to photograph the re-entry until there was no more unusual visual effects of the energy in the atmosphere. And it was very comforting to understand that the people in Houston, the controllers, had very high confidence that we were on the right path.

The guys who walk on Mars are going to be historic.

We have the ability, at such high fidelity, to simulate the physical world through computers. But when the spiritual world or human behavior comes into play, we don't have a very good model for that at all.

Anything we can do in the near future that begins to stimulate the interest of people - seeing somebody down the street have an opportunity to go into space - buoys up the whole neighborhood.

When President Kennedy took office, I was in the midst of my education.

Mars has been flown by, orbited, smacked into, radar examined, and rocketed onto, as well as bounced upon, rolled over, shoveled, drilled into, baked and even blasted. Still to come: Mars being stepped on.

In Mars, we've been given a wonderful set of moons where we can send continuous numbers of people.