At 10,000 feet, the 3 parachutes would come out, a little lower the pressure of the atmosphere outside was greater than inside, and we could smell the salt air and it was very encouraging to return to earth.

It's real easy to manufacture what you think the people want to hear. But that's not very honest.

I want to reach a new generation. That's why I am Twittering now. I have a BlackBerry, an iPhone and a Mac.

Do we really need these big, gigantic, heavy rockets? What if we launch a rocket that's empty, and its sole purpose is to act as a source of fuel on the Moon? Who should build that? Well, I think the U.S. should build that.

The energy varies with the square of the velocity, so if you need five times the velocity, that's 25 times the energy.

Nobody ever asks who was the seventh person on the Moon. The only thing they know is who's number one and who's number two. Does anybody know who the last man was?

At the core of the risk-free society is a self-indulgent failure of nerve.