Al was a very confident person, and he contributed a lot to the (space) program,

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.

The fascination to go into space has existed for hundreds of years. But as we do things and they're successful, people get bored.

Be thankful for problems. If they were less difficult, someone with less ability might have your job.

That training really helped us on the second time around, ... It was one of those acts of fate.

Back in those days, going to the moon, geology was important, ... But how do we train pilots to be geologists? We concentrated on observing, not the analytical parts of the rocks.