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

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

America put more money into research, into the new and the unknown than any nation in history, and the same thing with education, and those two things led us into a worldwide preeminence in a very short period of time.

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

Exploration, of course, is going to new places, but I don't think we go to new places just solely to say: "Well, we've been there," and come back, interesting though it may be. To me, each time we go farther into space we should use that to do basic research - basic research that can't be done before you go there.

We have an infinite amount to learn both from nature and from each other.

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