What do you need to succeed in business? You need the ability to think critically and communicate, and those things you can get just as easily out of a philosophy degree.

I don't have an M.B.A. I have a doctoral degree in philosophy - nineteenth-century German philosophy, to be precise.

I'd like the United States to become what it was always meant to be, which is a secular nation - more publicly committed to reason, to improving understanding, and promoting education.

During the seven years that I worked as a management consultant, I spent a lot of time trying to look older than I was. I became pretty good at furrowing my brow and putting on somber expressions.

We've arranged a civilization in which most crucial elements profoundly depend on science and technology.

Another hero was Tom Swift, in the books. What he stood for, the freedom, the scientific knowledge and being and engineer gave him the ability to invent solutions to problems. He's always been a hero to me. I buy old Tom Swift books now and read them to my own children.

I'm weird: I like science and math but also like English as well.

Even with only two people on board, where maintenance is a large piece of our working day, we still have time to do scientific research. We have to be ready to support those Shuttle visits in a lot of different ways.