I am discounting the reports of UFOs. Why would they appear only to cranks and weirdos?

Look up at the stars, not down at your feet.

Some people would claim that things like love, joy and beauty belong to a different category from science and can't be described in scientific terms, but I think they can now be explained by the theory of evolution.

We explore because we are human and we want to know. I hope that Pluto will help us on that journey.

Science can lift people out of poverty and cure disease. That, in turn, will reduce civil unrest.

So remember to look up at the stars and not down at your feet. Try to make sense of what you see and hold on to that childlike wonder about what makes the universe exist.

One can imagine that God created the universe at literally any time in the past. On the other hand, if the universe is expanding, there may be physical reasons why there had to be a beginning. One could imagine that God created the universe at the instant of the big bang, or even afterwards in just such a way as to make it look as though there had been a big bang, but it would be meaningless to suppose that it was created before the big bang. An expanding universe does not preclude a creator, but it does place limits on when he might have carried out his job!