I saw what government programs were and how they were executed. In some cases, they were executed beautifully, but in others, there was tremendous waste.
I don't like to camp. Early on, Mars is going to be camping. I think there are people far better suited to do that than me. But when the first Holiday Inn Express shows up, maybe I'll go.
After I finished my master's degree, I moved to a company called Aerospace Corporation, a big think tank for the U.S. Air Force and the National Reconnaissance Office.
You can't be on the cusp of innovation and at the forefront of technology if you're wearing blinders. If you don't have an exploration program where you're exploring your world here on Earth, underwater, and in space, then you're wearing blinders and handicapping yourself.
There was a lot of risk taken in the Mercury and Apollo eras, and we don't take those risks anymore. We've designed the systems to eliminate risk, which makes it take forever and cost too much money.
From my perspective, it's really risk management to ensure that humans have the ability to go somewhere else in case there were to be some huge disaster on Earth.
