Q & A with Astronauts and Explorers

Michael Lopez-Alegria, STS-73, STS-92, STS-113, Expedition-14
Anousheh Ansari, Space Explorer
Jeff Hoffman, STS 51-D, STS-35, STS-46, STS-61, STS-75
Dan Barry, STS-72, STS-96, STS-105
Janice Voss, STS-57, STS-63, STS-83, STS-94, STS-99
Roger Crouch, STS-83, STS-94
John Herrington, STS-113
Jay Buckey, STS-90

Won't even try to keep up with the many introductory statements and comments and who is who. So here are a few random samples without attributions:

* A number of astronauts now involved with entrepreneurial companies and expect lots more to go to them when the Shuttle program shuts down.

* Dealing with 3 year flight to Mars is an enormous challenge both in terms of hardware reliability and human factors.

* Some possibilities in advanced propulsion such as Chang Díaz's VASIMR but need lots of work.

* Moon vs. Mars debate: many supporters of Mars first are robotic fans since any Mars program will require many years if not decades of robotic exploration and therefore don't need to spend any money on human spaceflight for a long time.

* Would go tomorrow if the opportunity was available.

* Herrington - his resume was about the same as the other applicants but telling the interviewers that he liked to tinker and fix things made the difference. Someone living in space, such as on the ISS, a natural proclivity towards solving hardware problems as well as improving things.

* Personal spaceflight participants has a much greater impact on public interest on space travel than astronauts do.

* In the Shadow of the Moon is a special movie. Go see it.

* Want to fly in space again and to do it often. See commercial spaceflight as the only way to do that.