If there is one thing I’ve learned in my years on this planet, it’s that the happiest and most fulfilled people I’ve known are those who devoted themselves to something bigger and more profound than merely their own self interest.

Liftoff is very, very gentle, contrary to what most people think. Because you remember, the weight of the booster - the amount of thrust on the engine is just barely enough to get the booster underway. And so it's a very gentle liftoff, contrary to what most people think when they see all the fire and smoke of launch.

If we could do something that enhances the body's immune system here on Earth, it would be a tremendous step forward in the fight against disease and cancer and other things.

I still have my [flight] license and I can still pass a flight physical.

As far as actually setting up colonies of people who would live their whole lives in space, I think we're a long ways from doing that yet, and I think we have many, many decades before we could be able to even consider something like that.

That whole day [ of the space flight] is very vividly impressed on my memory because it was such a new experience. We hadn't done that before. And then I've recalled it so often since then I think that it's a - it's remained very vivid over the past 50 years, seems to me like about a week or two instead of 50 years.

I think in America we have to get back to being the best educated general citizenry in the world and make sure we do not lose our lead in research, if we're to have a leadership position in the world.