Quote

Perhaps the best motivation for going to Mars is political. It is obvious that no single nation currently has either the will or the resources to do it alone, but a consortium of nations and space agencies could achieve it within 20 years.

Every day, we get a little bit closer to the kind of expertise and the kind of experience we're going to need to go there. I'd love to be the guy walking on Mars.

It would take six months to get to Mars if you go there slowly, with optimal energy cost. Then it would take eighteen months for the planets to realign. Then it would take six months to get back, though I can see getting the travel time down to three months pretty quickly if America has the will.

The purpose of going to Mars is for humans to first begin to occupy, permanently, another planet in the solar system. The astronauts or pilgrims, whatever you might call them, are going to be very historically unique human beings.

I would suspect strongly that over a period of time, if we put our mind to going to Mars, it will be a consortium of several countries.

There are people who would love to spend their last ten years, or five years, or whatever it is, on the surface of Mars.

I suggest that going to Mars means permanence on the planet - a mission by which we are building up a confidence level to become a two-planet species.

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 don't go along with going to Moon first to build a launch pad to go to Mars. We should go to Mars from Earth orbit. We have already been to the Moon; we've already practiced.

We like to talk about pioneering Mars rather than just exploring Mars, because once we get to Mars, we will set up some sort of permanent presence.