The government needs a role in carrying out exploration. They will be leading the development of the engines that are needed, and the private sector will take advantage of those.

The first human beings to land on Mars should not come back to Earth. They should be the beginning of a build-up of a colony/settlement, I call it a 'permanence'.

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

Once you've been first, it cannot be done again. Not by you, not by anyone else.

Returning to the Moon with NASA astronauts is not the best usage of our resources. Because OUR resources should be directed to outward, beyond-the-moon, to establishing habitation and laboratories on the surface of Mars that can be built, assembled, from the close-by moons of Mars.

I wrote 'Reaching for the Moon' because I wanted to tell kids that all of us have a moon, a dream, that we can strive for. Even if you don't attain it, you can at least reach for it.

There's no guarantee that the United States will be around 200 years from now.