In any city with lots of skyscrapers, lots of skyline, the moon seems bigger than it is. It's called the moon illusion.

The Big Bang Theory: When geeky scientists can be main characters in a hit prime time series, you know there's hope for the world.

Private enterprise can never lead a space frontier. It's not possible because a space frontier is expensive, it has unknown risks and it has unquantified risks.

Wanting to do one thing can require that you take on other interests.

Intelligent life can't be all that common because it's really rare on Earth and especially since we define ourselves to be intelligent. But in the eyes of an alien coming here who has the technology to make it here, they might observe us and conclude that there's no sign of intelligent life on Earth.

We are star dust in the highest exalted way, called by the universe, reaching out to the universe

When you're a hammer (as the saying goes), all your problems look like nails. If you're a meteorite expert pondering the sudden extinction of boatloads of species, you'll want to say an impact did it. If you're an igneous petrologist, volcanoes did it. If you're into spaceborne bioclouds, an interstellar virus did it. If you're a hypernova expert, gamma rays did it.