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I was a frustrated astronaut all my life. I grew up at a time when space seemed to have no boundaries, and lots of us presumed humans would be living on the moon and landing on Mars.

I've always hankered after going into space and walking on the moon and Mars. I did want to be an astronaut, and had there been a manned space flight programme in the U.K., I would have been knocking on the door.

Also by my earliest days, I was fascinated by a utopian vision of what the world could be like. I've thought that science could be the basis for a better world, and that's what I've been trying to do all these years.

My childhood dreams were focused on being part of the effort to make humanity a multiplanetary species.

My grandfather allowed as how I might even live long enough to see a Mars landing. I haven't, of course, except in fiction, including my own, and strongly doubt that I ever will.

You can never fully put your finger on the reason why you're suddenly, inexplicably compelled to explore one life as opposed to another.

I don't want to leave this planet until I achieve everything that I was put here to do.

I'm never going to go to Mars, but I've helped inspire, thank goodness, the people who built the rockets and sent our photographic equipment off to Mars.

I came to dedicate my life to opening space to the average person and crafting designs for new spaceships that could take us far from home. But since Apollo ended, such travels were only in our collective memory.