It will not be humans who watch the sun's demise, six billion years from now. Any creatures that then exist will be as different from us as we are from bacteria or amoebae.

I hope that by 2050 the entire solar system will have been explored and mapped by flotillas of tiny robotic craft.

Devastation could arise insidiously, rather than suddenly, through unsustainable pressure on energy supplies, food, water and other natural resources. Indeed, these pressures are the prime 'threats without enemies' that confront us.

All space projects push the frontiers of technology and are drivers of innovation.

It's becoming clear that in a sense the cosmos provides the only laboratory where sufficiently extreme conditions are ever achieved to test new ideas on particle physics. The energies in the Big Bang were far higher than we can ever achieve on Earth. So by looking at evidence for the Big Bang, and by studying things like neutron stars, we are in effect learning something about fundamental physics.

The physicist is like someone who's watching people playing chess and, after watching a few games, he may have worked out what the moves in the game are. But understanding the rules is just a trivial preliminary on the long route from being a novice to being a grand master. So even if we understand all the laws of physics, then exploring their consequences in the everyday world where complex structures can exist is a far more daunting task, and that's an inexhaustible one I'm sure.

An insect is more complex than a star..and is a far greater challenge to understand.