Leonard Nimoy was recently awarded the 2010 Douglas S. Morrow Public Outreach Award at the 26th National Space Symposium in Colorado Springs, Colorado.  During his acceptance speech Leonard revealed that he's a big fan of real-world spaceflight, as well as the fictionalized version.

He also expressed his feelings about the recent release of the Obama administration space policy, "I do believe that President Obama means it when he says that he is 100 percent interested in space," Nimoy told reporters. "I know for sure he's a Star Trek fan," he said, because the first time the two men met, President Obama made Spock's traditional V-shaped finger spread.

"All-in-all I'm looking forward," he said. "I hope it's going to work out for the best."
Nimoy said he has followed space exploration throughout his career, and remembers driving to work on the set of Star Trek when he heard the news of the Challenger accident.

"Those pictures will never go away," he said of his memories of the explosion replays.

It's just beginning to sink in that the space shuttle era is ending, Nimoy said.

"I think people will be grieving," he said. "I will. I'll be sad to see it go. It's been a very important part of our image of NASA and space for the last number of years."

Leonard also credits the surge in interest of the TOS reruns in the early 70s to the popularity of the Apollo moon missions.

"In 1969 Neil Armstrong stepped on the moon, and I think that had a great impact on Star Trek reruns," Nimoy said. "The show began to find a tremendous new audience."

(source MSNBC.com)