So maybe part of our formal education should be training in empathy. Imagine how different the world would be if, in fact, that were 'reading, writing, arithmetic, empathy.'

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.

Deep in the world of atomic nuclei, life is not always tranquil.

The most creative people are motivated by the grandest of problems that are presented before them.

NASA was invented as a response to Cold War steps. There are those who presumed that we went to the moon because we're explorers. We went to the moon because we were at war with the Soviet Union. And so when it became clear that they (Soviet Union) were not going to the moon, we're done with the moon.

People like death and mayhem.

I'd like - inviting aliens and have them observe what we do because so much of what we do that we take for granted will just be weird or extraordinary or just plain dumb when observed by an alien from another civilization.