I think the material that inspires artists is the fabric of the soul of civilization.

Essentially every scientist, when posed with the question, "If you want to get science knowledge from Mars, do you want to send a geologist or do you want to send a robot?" Well, the real answer is, you can send 100 robots for the price of sending one geologist, so let's send 100 robots to 100 different locations, and then we would all benefit. So that's the answer you would get. And I agree with that answer.

Whenever people have used religious documents to make accurate predictions about our base knowledge of the physical world, they have been famously wrong.

Everyone has all different experiences in school. I just know that throughout my life, at no time did any teacher ever point to me and say, hey. He'll go far.

People say, oh we just need charismatic leaders to continue on to Mars. Now we've gone to the moon, of course Mars is next. No. Mars was never, of course, next. It is next if you think we went to the moon because we're explorers, but if you know we went to the moon because we were at war then we're never going to Mars. There's no military reason to do it, to justify the expenditure.

Like a snowplow in overdrive, a supernova shockwave might sweep away any gas clouds in its path.

When I needed to overcome the low expectations of others or the bias that would be expressed in one circumstance or another, I'd keep on keeping on. And I climb over the obstacle, go around it, dig under it, fly over it. That's what kept me going. Otherwise I would have never been an astrophysicist.