When Apollo 13 appeared as an opportunity and I began to tackle that in as authentic a way as I possibly could, I really became enthralled by the philosophical side of space travel, and why we need to explore - what it means to us here on Earth - all of those things. I became a huge proponent.

I've just looked for ideas and great characters that I relate to and that I think I can offer something to the audience, and I no longer look at them as experiments or genre exercises at all.

There's a very real argument that the minute we are capable of going to a planet, whether it's Mars or another one, and inhabiting it, that we really should.

You reach a point where you say you're not going to do juveniles any longer.

When Apollo 13 appeared as an opportunity and I began to tackle that in as authentic a way as I possibly could, I really became enthralled by the philosophical side of space travel, and why we need to explore - what it means to us here on Earth - all of those things. I became a huge proponent.

I think it's in our nature to try to get beyond that next horizon. I think that when we as a species are scratching that itch we're actually following an evolutionary compulsion that is wired into us. I think good things come of it. That's the philosophical side.

It was always hard to find stories that I felt were, in and of themselves, fresh enough and intriguing enough .