The surface of the moon is like nothing here on Earth! It's totally lacking any evidence of life. It has lots of fine, talcum-powderlike dust mixed with a complete variety of pebbles, rocks, and boulders. Many pebbles, fewer rocks, and even fewer boulders naturally make up its surface. The dust is a very fine, overall dark gray. And with no air molecules to separate the dust, it clings together like cement.

The decision to go to the moon is now appreciated and associated with President Kennedy's speech, but somebody else had told him it was a good idea. It turned out to be a good commitment, but it was a unique situation.

The moon I see now is the same moon I saw before. Except that before, when I looked at it, it was in anticipation of what it would be like when I got there. That's behind me now.

We must still think of ourselves as pioneers to understand the importance of space.

I think the people who experienced the Apollo missions came away from that experience wondering to themselves, 'When can we get a chance to experience spaceflight?' I've heard that many, many times: that people got into a new career field hoping that they would be able to experience spaceflight.

People communicate in Twittering ways. I've learned how to do that.

It's not easy to get human beings into orbit. So far only three nations have been able to do that, with all the resources that they put together. And I'm just a little skeptical that that's going to be done by the private sector without making use of what has been done by the government.