Each year, thousands of UFOs are sighted and reported, which is an impressive tally of unidentified aerial phenomena. Surveys show that roughly one-third of the populace believes that at least some of this sky show is due to extraterrestrial spacecraft, here to probe our airspace and, when that proves boring, our bodies.

You have to be there not for the fame and glory and recognition and being a page in a history book, but you have to be there because you believe your talent and ability can be applied effectively to operation of the spacecraft.

The Orion capsule uses an escape system quite like that of the Apollo spacecraft in the 1960s and 70s: an 'escape tower' containing a solid-fuel rocket that will pull it up and away from Ares I in a pinch.

Age can be wonderful for red wine, but not for spacecraft.

It would take an extremely large spacecraft to deflect a large asteroid that would be headed directly for the Earth.

There is a project that's underway called the interplanetary Internet. It's in operation between Earth and Mars. It's operating on the International Space Station. It's part of the spacecraft that's in orbit around the Sun that's rendezvoused with two planets.

One of the problems with science fiction, which is probably one of the reasons why I haven't done one for many, many years, is the fact that everything is used up. Every type of spacesuit is used up, every type of spacecraft is vaguely familiar, the corridors are similar, and the planets are similar.

Going back to the moon is not visionary in restoring space leadership for America. Like its Apollo predecessor, it will prove to be a dead end littered with broken spacecraft, broken dreams and broken policies.

The winners in life treat their body as if it were a magnificent spacecraft that gives them the finest transportation and endurance for their lives.

If somebody had told me when I was in graduate school, 'Brian, in 35 years you'll get a chance to fly the first commercial spacecraft with no computers,' I'd have said, 'I don't think so. People are not going to be that stupid.'

You have to be there not for the fame and glory and recognition and being a page in a history book but you have to be there because you believe your talent and ability can be applied effectively to operation of the spacecraft.