Having Walked On The Moon, I Know

It Was Designed To Have An Impact On The Stalemate Over Mutually Assured Destruction With The Soviet Union. Us Reaching The Moon Convinced Gorbachev And Other Leaders That The Soviet Union Couldn't Compete With The U.s., So They Revised Their Agenda. But People Have Short Memories.

There's A Tremendously Satisfying Freedom Associated With Weightlessness. It's Challenging In The Absence Of Traction Or Leverage, And It Requires Thoughtful Readjustment. I Found The Experience Of Weightlessness To Be One Of The Most Fun And Enjoyable, Challenging And Rewarding, Experiences Of Spaceflight. Returning To Earth Brings With It A Great Sense Of Heaviness, And A Need For Careful Movement. In Some Ways It's Not Too Different From Returning From A Rocking Ocean Ship.

Any Observations From The Moon Or A Sense Of Realising This Or That About The Greater Meaning Of Things Wasn't As Influential For Me As The Experience Of Coming Back And Dealing With Being A Person Who's Been To The Moon.

There Were About Six Years When There Was Not One American Who Went Into Space. We Shouldn't Do That Again.

Russia Perhaps Is Still Entertaining The Possibility That The Moons Of Mars Might Have Access To Ice Or Water.