There's a need for accepting responsibility - for a person's life and making choices that are not just ones for immediate short-term comfort. You need to make an investment, and the investment is in health and education.

Going to Mars would evolve humankind into a two-planet species.

I have no doubt that humans will go to Mars. And I feel that America has led so many things in space - we have invested so much, and we have a lot to gain - that America could and should be the nation that should lead the settlement of Mars.

Sending a couple of guys to the Moon and bringing them back safely? That's a stunt! That's not historic.

Retain the vision for space exploration. If we turn our backs on the vision again, we're going to have to live in a secondary position in human space flight for the rest of the century.

I'm not in favor of just taking short-term isolated situations and depleting our resources to keep our climate just the way it is today.

Exploring and colonizing Mars can bring us new scientific understanding of climate change, of how planet-wide processes can make a warm and wet world into a barren landscape. By exploring and understanding Mars, we may gain key insights into the past and future of our own world.