Too Many People, When They Get Old,

The Most Important Thing We Can Do Is Inspire Young Minds And To Advance The Kind Of Science, Math And Technology Education That Will Help Youngsters Take Us To The Next Phase Of Space Travel.

Most Of Our Competitor Nations Around The World Have A National Education System And America Is The Only Major Nation In The World That Operates Off Of Local School Boards. They Receive Very Little Direction From State Boards Of Education Or From The Nation. So Local School Boards Direct Basically What Happens And Too Often They're Not Willing To Track Or To Do The Supervision Of The Education System That Will Make It World Competitive.

America Had An Emphasis On The Individual And So Education Became Available For Everyone.

America Put More Money Into Research, Into The New And The Unknown Than Any Nation In History, And The Same Thing With Education, And Those Two Things Led Us Into A Worldwide Preeminence In A Very Short Period Of Time.

There Had Been A Number Of Failures But We Weren't Going Out To Ride A Failure. And We Felt They'd Corrected All The Difficulties With The Boosters Before That Time And The Launch Problems. And So We Had A Lot Of Confidence That There Was Going To Be A Successful Mission. We Weren't Off On Some Suicide Effort, Certainly.