I think there would be no shortage of applicants to the government astronaut corps to be settlers on the planet Mars. And I think this would be very inspiring.

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

By refocusing our space program on Mars for America's future, we can restore the sense of wonder and adventure in space exploration that we knew in the summer of 1969. We won the moon race; now it's time for us to live and work on Mars, first on its moons and then on its surface.

Mars could very well be a staging location for the resources of the asteroid belt. We have to learn how to get a payback somewhere, but it's beyond Mars that the real payoff will come from minerals.

When we can demonstrate that we can take off horizontally and put something into orbit, then we can begin to talk about increasing the amount of payload. But to say, 'I'm going to do that and put people into orbit' is a real leap.

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.

Not everyone will understand this need for America to lead the world in space.