I shot down two airplanes in Korea, so I wasn't a slouch.

Space is not just going up and coming back down again. Space is getting into orbit and being there, living there, establishing a presence, a permanence.

We need to begin thinking about building permanence on the Red Planet, not just have voyagers do some experiments, plant a flag and claim success. Having them go there, repeat this, in my view, is dim-witted. Why not stay there?

One of the major problems with long-term deep space human flight is the requirement for radiation shielding.

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

If you want poets in space, you'll have to wait.

I realize that my life is not the common ordinary person.