The space shuttle was often used as an example of why you shouldn't even attempt to make something reusable. But one failed experiment does not invalidate the greater goal. If that was the case, we'd never have had the light bulb.

If anyone has a vested interest in space solar power, it would have to be me.

Your probability of dying on Mars is much higher than earth. Really, the ad for going to Mars would be like Shackleton's ad for going to the Antarctic: "It's gonna be hard. There's a good chance of death, going in a little can through deep space. You might land successfully. Once you land successfully, you'll be working nonstop to build the base."

The revolutionary breakthrough will come with rockets that are fully and rapidly reusable. We will never conquer Mars unless we do that. It'll be too expensive. The American colonies would never have been pioneered if the ships that crossed the ocean hadn't been reusable.

The odds of me coming into the rocket business, not knowing anything about rockets, not having ever built anything, I mean, I would have to be insane if I thought the odds were in my favor.

I realized that a methane-oxygen rocket engine could achieve a specific impulse greater than 380.