There is no stronger case for the motivational power of real science than the discoveries that come from the Hubble Space Telescope as it unravels the mysteries of the universe.
When people left on the Oregon Trail from St. Louis, they knew that only a fraction of them would make it to the West Coast. But they went anyway.
Asteroid detection, tracking, and defense of our planet is something that NASA, its interagency partners, and the global community take very seriously.
Here on Earth, we're exposed to asteroids hitting the Earth, eventual changes in the Sun, changes in the Earth's climate, things we're doing to the Earth's climate. If we want to survive, we need to become a multi-planet species. That's further down the road, but the first wave is going to be the explorers.
Our journey in going beyond our home planet is a human endeavor, and in the greatest tradition of exploration, past, present, and future spacefarers will continue to be enduring catalysts for inspiration in our quest to unravel the mysteries of the universe.
I believe that the future of humans, and the future of Earth, depends on space exploration. That's not a French problem, or a problem for Alabama: it's a planet-wide problem. International cooperation is crucial.
The team at the Space Telescope Science Institute has a demonstrated record of meeting the high-performance challenges of operating the Hubble Space Telescope and preparing for the James Webb Space Telescope.
Science fiction has been an inspiration to generations of scientists and engineers, and the film series 'Star Wars' is no exception.
I can't imagine anywhere I'd rather be than outside the space shuttle in my space suit next to the Hubble Space Telescope.
The James Webb Space Telescope was specifically designed to see the first stars and galaxies that were formed in the universe.
The biggest honor is to be an astronaut. It's such a tremendous privilege to be able to represent humankind in our quest to explore space.
A lot of people get home from work and sink into a good chair, the place in their life where they feel most comfortable. I get that comfort in space, the place where I most feel like I belong.
When I grew up on the south side of Chicago, it was kind of a rough neighborhood, and when my parents saw the prospect of my older sister going to middle school, high school, they decided that we would move to the north side of Chicago, Highland Park, and for me, that was a whole new ballgame.
When I first went to Hubble, as an astronomer and as a scientist, it was a dream come true. And as an astronaut, the Hubble missions are premiere missions because Hubble is so important to science, so important to humanity, that it's just a very special event. But as an astronomer, it was sort of the holy grail of missions.
Hubble isn't just a satellite; it's about humanity's quest for knowledge.
There's no question that if we stay on planet Earth and never leave, that eventually we'll be wiped out.
All indications are that three and a half billion years ago, Mars looked like Earth. It had lakes. It had rivers. It had river deltas. It had snow-capped peaks and puffy clouds and blue sky. Three and a half billion years ago, it was a happening place. The same time on Earth, that's when life started. So did life start on Mars?
All space exploration is risky. As an astronaut, I had to decide each and every time I went to space whether or not to risk my life for the mission.
When I grew up as a kid, we didn't know there were any other planets outside of our own solar system. It was widely speculated that planet formation was an incredibly rare event and that it's possible that other planets just don't exist in our galaxy, and it's just this special situation where we happen to have planets around our sun.
The Hubble Space Telescope is more than remarkable. It has answered just so many of those fundamental questions that people have been asking about the cosmos since people were able to ask questions.
