Most of our competitor nations around the world have a national education system and America is the only major nation in the world that operates off of local school boards. They receive very little direction from state boards of education or from the nation. So local school boards direct basically what happens and too often they're not willing to track or to do the supervision of the education system that will make it world competitive.

The most important thing we can do is inspire young minds and to advance the kind of science, math and technology education that will help youngsters take us to the next phase of space travel.

We're going to go to the moon. We're going to go on to Mars. We're going to set up a base on the moon. OK, but no money to pay for it, nothing in the budget for it. And so the decision made at that time was to cancel the whole shuttle program to save money, which I think was very, very short sighted.

I think we're a long ways from really putting colonies of people out there who would live their whole lives out there in space. I don't see that happening for quite some time.

I think a mentor gets a lot of satisfaction in a couple of ways. They're doing something constructive, so they feel good about that. And when they see the results of this, with the young people they're working with, it's very, very rewarding.

To sit back and let fate play its hand out and never influence it is not the way man was meant to operate.

Just because I'm 77 doesn't mean I don't have a dream.