As children we all wonder - we wonder all the time. And that gets lost in adulthood. It gets beaten out, it gets filtered out or diluted out.

The universe is so amazing and so limitless, who wouldn't want to study the universe?

I've always been interested in pop culture. Some of my colleagues think of pop culture as beneath them, or there's the ivory tower and then there's everybody else, and I never could buy into that wall that's been put up by so many people over the decades and even the centuries.

The molecules that comprise our body are traceable to the crucibles of the centers of stars.These atoms and molecules are in us because, in fact, the universe is in us. And, we are not only figuratively, but literally, stardust.

Too many people view on [space exploration] as a luxury rather than as a fundamental driver to stimulate interest in science to everyone in the educational pipeline. It's vital to our prosperity and security.

Stars die and reborn […] They get so hot that the nuclei of the atoms fuse together deep within them to make the oxygen we breathe, the carbon in our muscles, the calcium in our bones, the iron in our blood. All was cooked in the fiery hearts of long vanished stars. … The cosmos is also within us. We're made of star stuff. We are a way for the cosmos to know itself.

I'm a little fatigued of adults saying we've got to worry about the kids. And these are the same adults that don't know science and are running things and wielding resources and legislation.