In 1980, during my sophomore year at MIT, I realized that the school didn't have a student space organization. I made posters for a group I called Students for the Exploration and Development of Space and put them up all over campus. Thirty-five people showed up. It was the first thing I ever organized, and it took off!

I get demoralized by organizations that start off with a mission and pull back when they find it's risky.

I believed that once we got to the Moon, there was no stopping us. But in fact, we did stop.

Super-ambitious goals tend to be unifying and energizing to people; but only if they believe there's a chance of success.

I'm not saying we don't have our set of problems - climate crisis, species extinction, water and energy shortage - we surely do. But ultimately we knock them down.

The price to generate a megawatt or a gigawatt of energy is coming down year after year. We're learning how to print it, make it more efficient.

The question companies have to ask, or governments have to ask is, where do we allow crazy ideas to bubble up? Because if there is a failure, what happens? Someone gets blame. There's a lawsuit, there's a congressional investigation. And so, those things shut down the creative engine.