"As a student, I wrote English reports on science fiction."

"Unfortunately, kids are led to believe things are easier to achieve than they really are."

"I want to keep on the move, keep stimulated and challenged."

"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."

"By venturing into space, we improve life for everyone here on Earth - scientific advances and innovations that come from this kind of research create products we use in our daily lives."

"In space, you don't get that much noise. Noise doesn't propagate in a vacuum."

"The society of life on Mars, or the challenge of making Mars more livable, will have significant benefits on our attempts to modify and change in some ways the environment here on Earth."

"I think the climate has been changing for billions of years."

"The big companies are the private industry. But they're faced with a short-term need to show a profit in short-term."

"There are many people talking about access to space and, 'How can we make that cheaper? How can we turn that into a Southwest Airlines versus the big airlines?'"

"Most people never believed in the real possibility of going to the moon, and neither did I until I was in my twenties."

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

"The decision to go to the moon is now appreciated and associated with President Kennedy's speech, but somebody else had told him it was a good idea. It turned out to be a good commitment, but it was a unique situation."

"When you're in a spacecraft, you need to know what things you can touch and what things you shouldn't touch!"

"Can you imagine, in 2030, taking a space cruise on the very ship that carried the first human beings to Mars? I can't believe that people wouldn't line up for that possibility."

"Somebody would think I was trying to get favored treatment because my ancestors had the name Moon. And that's a joke."

"Not everyone will understand this need for America to lead the world in space."

"What's aero braking? That's a way to use the gravity and upper atmosphere of Earth to sling shot a ship out either deeper into space, or slow it down to be 'captured' by Earth's gravity."

"Mars has been flown by, orbited, smacked into, radar inspected, and rocketed onto, as well as bounced upon, rolled over, shoveled, drilled into, baked, and even laser blasted."

"There were about six years when there was not one American who went into space. We shouldn't do that again."

"My first inclination is to be a bit skeptical about the claims that human-produced carbon dioxide is the direct contributor to global warming."

"I'm not in favor of just taking short-term isolated situations and depleting our resources to keep our climate just the way it is today."

"I really hate to be put in the position of trying to justify something, a decision that was made. I'm a military guy: when a decision is made, I go along with it, whatever the manufactured controversy and criticism."

"To me, money is a commodity that a person must have to function, not a goal in itself."

"I understand that Detroit was a pretty rough place to grow up in the '70s and '80s."

"People come up to me and say, 'It's too bad the space program got canceled.' This is not the case, and yet that is what most of the public thinks has happened."

"America can take man to the moon, and America can take men to Mars - and beyond."

"People communicate in Twittering ways. I've learned how to do that."

"American greatness was elevated significantly after Sputnik."

"Extraordinary observations require extraordinary evidence."

"The way I see it, what is going to come out of the moon activities is a respect for U.S. leadership."

"There should be an international lunar base. That is certainly doable."

"Heavy lifting doesn't need to be heavy spending if we do the job right."

"With his deeds, not only words, President Obama has revitalized our struggling space program."

"Having walked on the Moon, I know something about what we need to explore, really explore, in space."

"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."

"Space architectures capable of supporting a permanent human presence on Mars are extraordinarily complex, with many different interdependent systems."

"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 one is going to live on Jupiter."

"I feel we need to remind the world about the Apollo missions and that we can still do impossible things."

"Tang sucks."

"I am excited to think that the development of commercial capabilities to send humans into low Earth orbit will likely result in so many more Earthlings being able to experience the transformative power of space flight."

"Ray Bradbury is one who is contributing to the understanding of the imagination and the curiosity of the human race."

"Pascal Lee is a true pioneer of Mars exploration."

"Astronauts are not superhuman. They lead ordinary lives and have varied personalities."

"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."

"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."

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

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

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

"We need the next generation to be motivated and to push technological boundaries, to seek out new innovations."