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My work at MIT had focused on what we could build in space once we had inexpensive space transportation and industrial facilities in orbit. And this led to various sorts of work in space development.

All space projects push the frontiers of technology and are drivers of innovation.

Whether or not people go into space or serve the space industry, they will have the sensitivity to those fields necessary to stimulate unending innovation in the technological fields, and it's that innovation in the 21st century that will drive tomorrow's economies.

I've always been interested in space and the idea of exploration in that area since I was a child growing up through the '60s.

One of the big things about space exploration is that it is as expensive as it is complicated, and you need all the countries of the world to help if you want to accomplish big goals.

But investment in space stimulates society, it stimulates it economically, it stimulates it intellectually, and it gives us all passion.

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

I think that somebody with the resources and innovation and the idea is going to come out of nowhere and come up with a successful space travel program.

SpaceX is very unusual. I don't know of any other startup where the founder put in $100 million of his own money before looking for any outside capital. They have wildly exceeded any reasonable expectations.