In our time, we have sifted the sands of Mars, we have established a presence there, we have fulfilled a century of dreams!

It's sometimes easier to reject strong evidence than to admit that we've been wrong, this is information about ourselves worth having.

This oak tree and me, we're made of the same stuff.

Science is far from a perfect instrument of knowledge. It's just the best we have.

Our children long for realistic maps of the future that they can be proud of. Where are the cartographers of human purpose?

A stars rich in europium; of distant galaxies analyzed through the collective light of a hundred billion constituent stars. Astronomical spectroscopy is an almost magical technique. It amazes me still. Auguste Comte picked a particularly unfortunate example.

The universe is a pretty big place. If it's just us, seems like an awful waste of space.