I love the smell of the universe in the morning.

When Kennedy said, 'Let's go to the moon,' we didn't yet have a vehicle that wouldn't kill you on launch. He said we'll land a man on the moon in eight years and bring him back. That was an audacious goal to put forth in front of the American people.

I'm fascinated by the deaths of stars and the havoc they wreak on their environments.

Photons are accurately and legitimately described as waves and particles at the same time. They are genuine wavicles.

You like to explore things, and your parents don't like it because it gets the pots and pans dirty, and because it's noisy - but for you it's fun, you're resting. You're actually doing experiments... Just tell your parents that they're experiments, and you want to become a scientist, and then they won't stop you from doing anything you want.

If aliens did visit us, I'd be embarrassed to tell them we still dig fossil fuels from the ground as a source of energy.

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.