I’ve been asked many times, what would I do if I were NASA Director. And I said, I would resign, knowing that that’s an insufficient place of power to do what NASA needs to do.

You need to be in a position to double NASA’s budget and if the president can’t do it, then the only force left are those to whom the president reports – and that’s the electorate. In fact, any deep change that needs to happen with NASA needs to happen on a level that transcends partisan politics and politics in general, so that is a will of the nation rather than a whim of a politician that’s coming in and out of office.