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The government will see that human spaceflight is useful - for science and the economy - and inspirational.

If NASA is to reach beyond the Moon and someday reach Mars, it must be relieved of the burden of launching people and cargo to low earth orbit. To do that, we must invest more in commercial spaceflight.

There is just one thing I can promise you about the outer-space program - your tax-dollar will go further.

In 12 or 15 years, there will be routine, affordable space tourism not just in the U.S. but in a lot of countries.

NASA is an engine of innovation and inspiration as well as the world's premier space exploration agency, and we are well served by politicians working to keep it that way, instead of turning it into a mere jobs program, or worse, cutting its budget.

The problem is that many people operate on the assumption that NASA should go to Congress every year with hat in hand and justify it every year. Well, I see it as the greatest economic driver that there ever was. Economic drivers don't need justification.

If we drive down the cost of transportation in space, we can do great things.

You see countries like India really investing in their space program because they see it as inspirational and good for their economy.

Now we are flying off into outer space, there is no clear curb on what can be done in the name of the economy.

The partisanship surrounding space exploration and the retrenching of U.S. space policy are part of a more general trend: the decline of science in the United States. As its interest in science wanes, the country loses ground to the rest of the industrialized world in every measure of technological proficiency.