I don't watch 'American Idol,' but I wouldn't call it 'undignified.'

My favourite thing to do on this planet is to scuba dive.

Neil Armstrong was the first man to walk on the moon. I am the first man to piss his pants on the moon.

As a student, I wrote English reports on science fiction.

Unless we are able to commit to a permanent growing settlement [on Mars], then I don't think just going there with humans and coming back is worth doing. The expense of planning to come back is like the people who left Europe to come to America and then to turn around and go back to Europe, it really doesn't make any sense at all.

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.

A hybrid human-robot mission to investigate an asteroid affords a realistic opportunity to demonstrate new technological capabilities for future deep-space travel and to test spacecraft for long-duration spaceflight.