It's too bad our society isn't further along.

Astronauts will remain the explorers, the pioneers-the first to go back to moon and on to Mars. But I think it's really important to make space space available to as many people as we can. It's going to be a while before we can launch people for less than $20 million a ticket. But that day is coming.

When you're getting ready to launch into space, you're sitting on a big explosion waiting to happen.

The experience of being in space didn't change my perspective of myself or of the planet or of life. I had no spiritual experience.

Rocket science is tough, and rockets have a way of failing.

So I saw many planets, and they looked just a little bit brighter than they do from Earth.

It takes a couple of years just to get the background and knowledge that you need before you can go into detailed training for your mission.