Instead of planning the retirement of the Space Shuttle program, America should be preparing the shuttles for their next step in space: evolving, not shutting them down and laying off thousands of people.

We can’t start over and develop a Saturn 5-type vehicle from scratch.

Certainly, I’ve never wanted to live on past achievements.

Let’s not spend resources that we don’t need to be sending astronauts back to the moon. Let’s not spend expensive resources on bringing people who have reached Mars back again. Prepare them to become a...

I realize that my life is not the common ordinary person.

You can never tell when a commercial space venture will suddenly become viable.

When we can demonstrate that we can take off horizontally and put something into orbit, then we can begin to talk about increasing the amount of payload. But to say, ‘I’m going to do that...

Fighter pilots have ice in their veins. They don’t have emotions. They think, anticipate. They know that fear and other concerns cloud your mind from what’s going on and what you should be involved in.

There’s no doubt who was a leader in space after the Apollo Program. Nobody came close to us. And our education system, in science, technology, engineering and math, was at the top of the world....

Kids, help your parents if they don’t know how to use a smartphone.

I’m convinced that sending people to Mars is so expensive that if you go once and bring the people back and then go again and bring the people back, we’re eventually going to run out...

Like actors and writers who are on and off again in terms of employment, I had a very unstructured life.

I am not sure about Bill Nelson. I haven’t heard him say, ‘Let’s junk the NASA plan to send humans to the moon.’ He’s not about to say that. That would not be very popular.

Because of his military service, Dad was buried in Arlington National Cemetery.

When you go to Mars, you need to have made the decision that you’re there permanently. The more people we have there, the more it can become a sustaining environment. Except for very rare exceptions,...

Tang sucks.

During the divorce process, I lived alone and tended to get extremely down on myself.

The life expectancy of people going to Mars may be decreased by the higher level of radiation that they receive.

NASA needs to focus on the things that are really important and that we do not know how to do. The agency is a pioneering force, and that is where its competitive advantage lies.

I think the American Dream used to be achieving one’s goals in your field of choice – and from that, all other things would follow. Now, I think the dream has morphed into the pursuit...

Exploring and colonizing Mars can bring us new scientific understanding of climate change, of how planet-wide processes can make a warm and wet world into a barren landscape. By exploring and understanding Mars, we may...

Everyone who’s been in space would, I’m sure, welcome the opportunity for a return to the exhilarating experiences there.

The leader of an Earth organization who makes a commitment to history – of humans living on Earth, to begin permanent settlement/occupation of not the moon, but of another planet – this leader will have...

I remember it was hard to believe that I was taking a step onto the lunar surface.

A hybrid human-robot mission to investigate an asteroid affords a realistic opportunity to demonstrate new technological capabilities for future deep-space travel and to test spacecraft for long-duration spaceflight.

You need propellants to accelerate toward Mars, then to decelerate at Mars, again to re-accelerate from Mars to Earth, and finally to decelerate back at Earth. Accordingly, the mass of these required propellants, in short,...

As we reflect back upon the tragic loss of Challenger and her brave crew of heroes who were aboard that fateful day, I am reminded that they truly represented the best of us, as they...

I was motivated to improve the U.S. strategy of going back to the moon in 1985. That’s a long time ago. Going back to the moon would be a great achievement for tourism adventure flights.

My own American Dream was to serve my country as best I could and make a difference in America – and in the world.

Mars is much closer to the characteristics of Earth. It has a fall, winter, summer and spring. North Pole, South Pole, mountains and lots of ice. No one is going to live on Venus; no...

Look at what Silicon Valley has done – the advance of computers.

I think the people who experienced the Apollo missions came away from that experience wondering to themselves, ‘When can we get a chance to experience spaceflight?’ I’ve heard that many, many times: that people got...

Being first outside the spacecraft would bring much more responsibility, and I really wasn’t looking for that.

Going to Mars would evolve humankind into a two-planet species.

The way I see it, commercial interests should manage a lunar base while NASA gets on with the really important task of flying to Mars.

Human rights problems will always exist for years to come, but maybe they’ll lessen somewhat.

The much-hyped Ares 1-X was much ado about nothing.

Over the years, I think I’ve matured in my spiritual evolution and development to understand a bit more than the narrow religious thinking – to move beyond that through a sort of perfection of the...

I still say, ‘Shoot for the moon; you might get there.’

The beauty of Hawaii probably surpasses other places. I like the Big Island and the two mountains, Mauna Loa and Mauna Kea, where you can look out at the stars.

Extraordinary observations require extraordinary evidence.

As someone who flew two space capsules and twice landed in the ocean, I can attest from personal experience how much logistics work is needed to get you home.

I shot down two airplanes in Korea, so I wasn’t a slouch.

Anything we can do in the near future that begins to stimulate the interest of people – seeing somebody down the street have an opportunity to go into space – buoys up the whole neighborhood.

Ir à lua e voltar não é tão desafiador quanto retornar à terra e ter de lidar com a humanidade.

There’s a need for accepting responsibility – for a person’s life and making choices that are not just ones for immediate short-term comfort. You need to make an investment, and the investment is in health...

I’ve led a life of such structured discipline and always had a goal in mind of knowing what I was doing, from West Point to the Air Force combat, MIT, looking for new things to...

My Sunday mornings are spent in a recovery meeting in Pacific Palisades.

My expertise is the space program and what it should be in the future based on my experience of looking at the transitions that we’ve made between pre-Sputnik days and getting to the moon.

Mars has a bit of air pressure; maybe we can build up that atmosphere to be a bit more accommodating to humans.