Who are we? We find that we live on an insignificant planet of a humdrum star lost in a galaxy tucked away in some forgotten corner of a universe in which there are far more galaxies than people.

Except for children (who don't know enough not to ask the important questions), few of us spendtime wondering why nature is the way it is . . .

If we are to survive, our loyalties must be broadened further, to include the whole human community, the entire planet Earth.

By exploring other worlds we safeguard this one. By itself, I think this fact more than justifies the money our species has spent in sending ships to other worlds. It is our fate to live during one of the most perilous and, at the same time, one of the most hopeful chapters in human history.

Any faith that admires truth, that strives to know God, must be brave enough to accommodate the universe.

Extraordinary claim requires extraordinary proof.

I’m struck again by the irony that spaceflight-conceived in the cauldron of nationalist rivalries and hatreds-brings with it a stunning transnational vision. You spend even a little time contemplating the Earth from orbit and the most deeply engrained nationalisms begin to erode. They seem the squabbles of mites on a plum.