The countdown reached ten seconds and I could almost hear an invisible crescendo of stirring background music. 'Anchors aweigh!' Five, four, three, two, one... and we had ignition!

The countdown reached ten seconds and I could almost hear an invisible crescendo of stirring background music. 'Anchors aweigh!' Five, four, three, two, one... and we had ignition!

It's our destiny to explore. It's our destiny to be a space-faring nation.

Mom was always doing something for somebody. She came from a Czech background, one that made her a devout Catholic and gave her a strong belief in the family.

If the guidance failed or started to stray or went somewhere we didn't like or the ground didn't like, I could flip a switch, and I could control seven, over seven and a half million pounds of thrust with this handle and fly the thing to the Moon myself.

Perhaps the two greatest moments of my life were standing on the moon and being outside of the room when my granddaughter was born! We tend not to remember the worst.

Some of the most exciting space education in the country is not coming out of Washington or New York or California or even Texas. It's coming from a place in Kansas called the Cosmosphere.