As I hurtled through space, one thought kept crossing my mind - every part of this rocket was supplied by the lowest bidder.

We (the DOE) are poisoning our people in the name of national security.

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.

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.

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.

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

There are times when you devote yourself to a higher cause than personal safety.