Curiosity is unknown. All adults were once kids and once curious, but as adults you don't remember that and you see curiosity when it's expressed in children as a pathway to household disaster. They're simply exploring their environment, manifesting their curiosity. So what you need to do is create an environment where curiosity is rewarded rather than punished, or thwarted.

So what is true for life itself is no less true for the universe: knowing where you came from is no less important than knowing where you are going.

We need more science in the world. Train me.

While we may lose track of certain goals intermittently throughout the decades, I think we as a nation can be nimble when we need to be. All the buzz today is on the need for science literacy. That is on the agenda in ways it hasn't been in previous decades.

Any astrophysicist does not feel small looking up at the universe; we feel large.

On Friday the 13th, April 2029, an asteroid large enough to fill the Rose Bowl as though it were an egg cup will fly so close to Earth that it will dip below the altitude of our communication satellites. We did not name this asteroid Bambi. Instead, we named it Apophis, after the Egyptian god of darkness and death.

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.