America needs the best education system in the world. We have it in higher education. We do not have it in general education for all of our people - the K-12 education. Other nations are far, far outdoing the United States in that area. We still have the lead in research, but once again, other nations are pouring more into research also. We still have a lead, but to me it's just very, very important that we keep that lead in basic research.

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

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.

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.

I think no matter where we go in space to me the important thing is not only getting there and getting back, but it's also doing research, because that opens up as a possibility with that new distance of travel in space.

We thought that the odds of things working OK were up in the upper 90 percent or we wouldn't have gone. But the - there were some problems cropped up on the flight but was able to take care of those OK and - although they were things that we hadn't really trained that much for. But it was the time of the Cold War and so there were was a lot of pressure on the - to get going and the Russians were claiming that they were - Soviets were claiming they were ahead of us in technology.

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.