If factual information upsets you, then you are creating a world that is not embracing objective truths, and that's not how you advance a democracy.

The universe has really never made things in ones. The Earth is special and everything else is different? No, we’ve got seven other planets. The sun? No, the sun is one of those dots in the night sky. The Milky Way? No, it’s one of a hundred billion galaxies. And the universe - maybe it’s countless other universes.

If it's a new planet, sign me up. I'm tired of driving around the block, boldly going where hundreds have gone before in orbit around earth-give me a place to go and I'll go.

For decades, we've been trying to cook up the building blocks of life, in the lab, and recreate the origins of it all, but the parts didn't seem to fit together, until now.

There's an old saying in the space community: 'If God wanted us to be a spacefaring species, he would have given us a moon'.

The trend lines in research and innovation look good for places such as India and China and less good for America as we go forward. So even if you're not enchanted by the prospect of cosmic discovery, the prospect of dying poor may be what it takes to understand the role of this adventure in the future of the natural world in which we live.

The more I learn about the universe, the less convinced I am that there's any sort of benevolent force that has anything to do with it, at all.