I grew up in New Jersey and never went up the Statue of Liberty.

I didn't start skiing until I was 50. My wife Lois taught me how to ski. I'm proficiently conservative.

Going back to the moon is not visionary in restoring space leadership for America. Like its Apollo predecessor, it will prove to be a dead end littered with broken spacecraft, broken dreams and broken policies.

I believe that space travel will one day become as common as airline travel is today. I'm convinced, however, that the true future of space travel does not lie with government agencies -- NASA is still obsessed with the idea that the primary purpose of the space program is science -- but real progress will come from private companies competing to provide the ultimate adventure ride, and NASA will receive the trickle-down benefits.

Is the destiny of the human species to sit back and play with our mouse and computer and imagine, fantasize?

Before deciding what to do about national space policy, Obama set up an outside review panel of space experts, headed up by my friend Norm Augustine, former head of Lockheed Martin and a former government official.

I think it's inevitable that there will be Earthlings establishing a presence on Mars. And I would say that it would certainly take place by 2050 or shortly thereafter.