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 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.

You have to ask yourself the question, do you have the smartest people in the world working for your company? And if you do, you're lucky. But if you don't, put up the incentive. And have someone who is absolutely brilliant who's a 22-year old in India who says what about this way? And who revolutionizes the way you do business.

The idea of a young thin woman who weighs 100 pounds driving herself around in a 4,000 pound SUV is laughable.

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.

I founded a launch company called International Microspace when I graduated medical school in 1989. We were trying to build a microsatellite launcher.

I don't think the space station is innovative. Going to the moon was innovative because we had no idea how to do it.