What opened up the American West was the fact that you owned the real estate. You owned the gold mines, the oil wells. The creation of these, back then, million dollar industries drove the railroads and eventually the airlines to provide this kind of transportation.

You could not legally put a human and fly them into space. In fact, you couldn't bring a spaceship back. All those spaceships we were sending commercially into space were one way. You sort of like, got rid of them. And most passengers, who go up, do want to come back down.

I have the general philosophy of creating the future you want to see.

If someone is always to blame, if every time something goes wrong someone has to be punished, people quickly stop taking risks. Without risks, there can't be breakthroughs.

Large companies and government agencies have a lot to protect and therefore are not willing to take big risks. A large company taking a risk can threaten its stock price. A government agency taking a risk can threaten congressional investigation.

The paradigm I want to change is that, you can have a car that is beautiful, manufacturable, affordable, safe, fast, and oh, by the way, does 100 mpg, or its energy equivalent. Why wouldn't you?

The folks who go after grand challenges are impatient. They're pissed off. They're sick and tired, but in a passionate way. They're driven by a fire in their bellies to make a difference.