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.

There had been a number of failures but we weren't going out to ride a failure. And we felt they'd corrected all the difficulties with the boosters before that time and the launch problems. And so we had a lot of confidence that there was going to be a successful mission. We weren't off on some suicide effort, certainly.

I suppose the one quality in an astronaut more powerful than any other is curiosity. They have to get some place nobody's ever been.

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

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

When others kid me about being bald, I simply tell them that the way I figure it, the good Lord only gave men so many hormones, and if others want to waste theirs on growing hair, that's up to them.

There is still no cure for the common birthday.