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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.

We actually look to the scientific community to kind of come back to NASA and tell us what the priorities should be. And then at NASA, we try to look within our budget and say, 'What can we accommodate, and what are the most important things for the nation?'

For NASA, space is still a high priority.

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.

I think the crux of the matter was that if we were going to become partners in, for example, the International Space Station, we had to gain the respect of a country like the United States and particularly its space organization, NASA.

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

With the mission to Mars, the whole world wants to get involved. So we actually have 13 different space agencies from around the world working on the global exploration road map.

NASA works for the White House. There are many at NASA that wish they were building a modern replacement for the Shuttle. However, they had marching orders to instead work on other things, some of which should have no place in a research organization.

If you're going to go into space, you have to have an objective, a mission. Where do you want to go? Earth orbit? The moon? Mars? What's the technology to get there? You develop the technology for the mission.

Space exploration is important research to our economic and national defense, and America's space program is a symbol of our success as a scientifically and technologically advanced nation.