David Mackay

I am not going to pretend that flying a spaceship will be as safe as getting in a 747 with four engines for a flight across the Atlantic.

In any aircraft you fly, you always think about what can go wrong, and you plan for it in advance. You always have back-up plans.

I want to get to the moon. I want to go to Mars.

In early 1993, when I was 12, I was separated from my family as the Sierra Leone civil war, which began two years earlier, came into my life.

I'd date someone younger or older; age doesn't matter to me. Or looks, really - it's all about maturity.

No aeroplane you've ever gotten into had less than thousands of flights before they took their first passenger. Because vehicles are unsafe at first.