We had a lot of confidence that there was going to be a successful mission. We weren't off on some suicide effort, certainly [with Friendship 7].

We had a lot of confidence that there was going to be a successful mission. We weren't off on some suicide effort, certainly [with Friendship 7].

I think that it's good for us to be able to travel in space and do research in space, and I emphasize the research, because space travel to me is far more than just seeing how far we can go.

In America, we have no means of getting to our own Space Station. We have to pay the Russians to put our people up there to send them into space - rendezvous with the Station and bring them back at the end of their stay, and that to me is just wrong. We're supposed to be the world's greatest space-faring nation, and to cancel our own means of getting there I thought was a mistake, even though it would save some money.

I don't know what you could say about a day in which you have seen four beautiful sunsets.

Because now, you know, it's going to be a number of years yet before we have our own new boosters and new spacecraft to go to our own International Space Station and proceed with all the research that we spent $100 billion putting up there to give us that research capability for the future for people right here on Earth.

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.