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You wouldn't want to land on the Moon and launch to Mars. That would be very inefficient.

To try to really land a spacecraft really on another world is really difficult, and if we lose that ability, it's going to be heartbreaking.

I'm in favor of changing the destination of humans. There are a lot of manned missions that can be done, but not in the direction of the moon.

That's what we want to do here at Johnson Space Center. I think what we have always brought to NASA and brought to the country is trying to push the boundaries, trying to go to the next level.

But I don't think we'll go there until we go back to the moon and develop a technology base for living and working and transporting ourselves through space.

Research into manned spaceflight is shifting from low-Earth orbit to destinations much further away, like Mars and the asteroid belt. But society will have to invent many new technologies before it can plausibly send people to those distances.

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

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.

To deliver vast new resources to humanity, we must pioneer and occupy the moon, Mars, and perhaps even beyond.