I wake up and I go to work. I don't look for the cup of coffee. The universe is enough of a draw for me - to awaken me and have me bound out of bed and go to my office.

When scientifically investigating the natural world, the only thing worse than a blind believer is a seeing denier.

Science is a fundamental part of our existence.

when I wrestled, I would set aside the time to wrestle, so that in my mind it didn't interfere with my study time. That helped me psychologically. When I'm wrestling, I'm not studying the universe. And when I'm studying the universe, I'm not wrestling.

If we have the power to turn another planet into Earth, then we have the power to turn Earth back into Earth.

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 each dead person became a ghost, there'd be more than 100 billion of them haunting us all. Creepy, but cool.