When you're enlightened, you don't have to reference other people, because you yourself are enlightened. And that's a better Earth. People can make more informed decisions politically, culturally, personally.

We should not be ashamed of not having answers to all questions yet... I'm perfectly happy staring somebody in the face saying, 'I don't know yet, and we've got top people working on it.' The moment you feel compelled to provide an answer, then you're doing the same thing that the religious community does: providing answers to every possible question.

UV is bad for molecules because its high energy breaks the bonds between a molecule's constituent atoms. That's why UV is bad for you, too: it's always best to avoid things that decompose the molecules of your flesh.

Imagination alone is not enough, because the reality of nature is far more wondrous than anything we can imagine

When NASA makes discoveries they are profound and they make headlines, everyone takes notice. It drives dialogue and, today, it would drive the blogosphere. It would drive the projects the kids do in school. So you wouldn't even need programs to try and stimulate curiosity. You wouldn't need programs to try to convince people that science literacy is good. Because they're going to want to participate on this epic adventure that we call space exploration.

If there's something that someone else can do, let them do it. If I couldn't do it uniquely, let someone else do it and I would get back to the lab.

Our entire universe emerged from a point smaller than a single atom. Space itself exploded in a cosmic fire, launching the expansion of the universe and giving birth to all the energy and all the matter we know today. I know that sounds crazy, but there’s strong observational evidence to support the Big Bang theory. And it includes the amount of helium in the cosmos and the glow of radio waves left over from the explosion.