Everybody remembers numbers and computers remember numbers. People remember procedures and computers certainly remember procedures. But the other thing that's still important is that your perception as a human is affected subtly by all this stuff that you can't quite articulate. You run your life according to all this stuff that's happened to you. All of your memories affect everything you do whereas with a computer, there's adaptive software and things, but it's more literal.

If you meet somebody who says he or she has never dreamed of flying, I don't believe you. I mean, they're lying.

I am so old, I entered engineering school with a slide rule. And I left engineering school with a calculator. I can still use a slide rule but it's not a skill you especially need anymore.

When we explore the cosmos, we come to believe and prove that we can solve problems that have never been solved. It brings out the best in us. Space exploration imbues everyone with an optimistic view of the future.

Unlike science, creationism cannot predict anything, and it cannot provide satisfactory answers about the past.

I'll admit that the discovery of evolution is humbling, but it is also empowering. It transforms our relationship to the life around us. Instead of being outsiders watching the natural world go by, we are insiders. We are part of the process; we are the exquisite result of billions of years of natural research and development.

But investment in space stimulates society, it stimulates it economically, it stimulates it intellectually, and it gives us all passion.