I'm Chinese-American, of course, and so it's very interesting to see China actually launch their own astronauts, becoming the third nation, following the United States and Russia, to do so.

I remember getting advice like, "Oh, do what interests you. Don't worry about tomorrow, live for today," kind of thing. And to a degree, you've got to do that, you've got to follow your passions. You've got to follow your dreams, but you also have to have a plan. You can't just say I'm going to do what interests me today and I'm not going to worry about tomorrow, that doesn't work. And anyone who's tried that I think quickly finds that out. Think about what turns you on, what do you dream about? But along with that, make a plan and work hard to make it happen.

The space station mission was kind of the culmination of all of my experience of being a NASA Astronaut, so it had brought all of my previous experience into play. I had to learn the Russian language to a fluent level so that I could function as the co-pilot of the Soyuz Spacecraft that we flew up and back from the space station. And then the challenge of being the Commander of the whole expedition, a six and a-half month flight aboard the international space station. I felt the burden of the whole mission on my shoulders, which was fine, and fortunately everything did go well.

Tinkering is something we need to know how to do in order to keep something like the space station running. I am a tinkerer by nature.

This was the first time we had two ex-Soviet Cosmonauts in Houston. A lot of us, including me, viewed it with some skepticism, because I grew up during the Cold War, so I had been hit with all this propaganda all along that their stuff wasn't that good, it wasn't that safe and we were so much better. What I found out later was that their space stuff was very good and good enough that I was certainly comfortable flying on their equipment. So, it was kind of a revelation of sorts as the years went by and I think it underscores the importance right now of international cooperation.

I would say keep supporting space flight, keep telling the public and the politicians why it's important to advance science and explore the galaxy. I encourage the Japanese to keep doing what they're doing.

If you increase the number of rockets you build and you buy, then it's the scale of the economy, the price is going to come down. It may not come down in order of magnitude, but if several commercial ventures start being successful and there becomes a bigger market for these rockets, the price will naturally come down a bit. That's why I think Excalibur Almaz, we're a little bit unique in that we don't look at our so-called competition with disdain, we want them to succeed and it needs to have more than one player. Even if we are successful, we couldn't handle the entire market ourselves.