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" I think a lot of people interested in space exploration tend to hear stories about the great missions, how they work technically, what we learned. But they don't really hear the story of what it takes to get a mission from scratch to the launch pad and into space. "

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" I do a lot of work with NASA and am involved in research projects studying planetary evolution, Earth-like planets, and potential conditions for life elsewhere. "

David Grinspoon

Research

Potential

NASA

" The hallmark of the human species is great adaptability. "

" Earth is a stunningly lovely planet for so many reasons. Among these is the wondrous presence of curious, artful, inventive humanity. "

" It turns out one of my dad's best friends was Carl Sagan when I was little. They were both Harvard professors. "

" It will be a long time, if ever, before we get to study Earth-like planets orbiting around other stars, so really, the study of Venus and Mars is the best opportunity that we have, and can imagine having anytime in the future, to understand the evolution of Earth-like planets. "

" I think Pluto has to be considered among the places in the solar system that are possible homes for life. "

" One of the weird things about modern physics is that we do find there are apparently these other dimensions that we don't directly experience that explain some aspects of the overall geometry and reality of our universe. "

" There was a long history of people believing there was life on Venus. It was about the same size as Earth. It had clouds. It was commonly believed it was tropical - wet, hot and steamy. "

" There is a history of thinking about space science from an environmental ethics perspective. And part of what I want to do is turn that back and use that experience to see if it reflects how we think about the Earth. "

" What we should really be thinking about is what it would look like for a truly intelligent technological species to be interacting with their planet's atmosphere. "

" Time and time again, our species has escaped existential threats by reinventing ourselves, finding new skills not coded in our genes to survive new challenges not previously encountered. "

" Even as a kid enthralled with science fiction, I wondered about the role of people in the long-term evolution of the Earth, the far future and the fate of humanity. "

" Part of the point of SETI has always been a search for answers about our own cosmic potential and destiny. If 'they' are out there, it means that there may be hope for us. "

" We need visions of a future in which we have applied our infinite creativity to the task of living on a finite world, where we have embraced our role, become comfortable and proficient as planet-shapers, and learned to use our technological skills to enhance the survival prospects not just of humanity but of all life on Earth. "

" There are other planets besides the Earth and Mars. I'd like to remind you that studying Venus is vital to understanding life elsewhere. "

" As a young planet, Venus was losing hydrogen rapidly to space. The oceans boiled off, and after some period of time, perhaps 600 million years, there was no surface water. "

" We're going to get off fossil fuels, no question. We may not do it quickly enough to avoid some pain, and I'm quite worried about that. But by the 22nd century, there's no way we'll be on fossil fuels. "

" Astrobiology is the science of life in the universe. It's an attempt to scientifically deal with the question of whether or not we're alone in the universe, looking at the past of life, the present of life, and the future of life. It's an interdisciplinary study incorporating astronomy, biology, and the Earth sciences. "

" NASA, and all the other spacefaring nations of the world, have agreed to a set of 'planetary-protection' principles, aimed at preventing the accidental contamination of another habitable world with organisms from Earth. "

" In order to have a decent chance to be a communicating species, you would have to learn to think and plan and act over time scales of a century or a millennium. "

" As long as we can imagine a better path, of course we are obligated to seek it. This is why unwarranted pessimism about our future is actually irresponsible. "

" What I wonder most about the Anthropocene is not when did it start - but when, and how, will it end? Will it end? Or is it possible that our own growing awareness of our role on Earth can itself play a pivotal role in shaping the outcome toward one that we would desire? "

" What if life is not carbon-based? Can life exist as a gas or a plasma? Could planets or stars in some sense be alive? What about an interstellar cloud? Could life exist on such a small or large scale, or move so fast or so slowly that we wouldn't recognize it? Could you have an intelligent virus? "

" Earth's biosphere gave birth to humans and our thoughts, which are now reshaping its planetary cycles. A planet with brains? Fancy that. "

" Thinking about the new epoch - often called the Anthropocene, or the age of humanity - challenges us to look at ourselves in the mirror of deep time, measured not in centuries or even in millennia, but over millions and billions of years. "

" The basic ability to not wipe oneself out, to endure, to use your technological interaction with the world in such a way that has the possibility of the likelihood of lasting and not being temporary - that seems like a pretty good definition of intelligence. "

" If we gutted NASA Earth Science, it wouldn't be NOAA or some other agency that would take the lead. It would be the Chinese and the Europeans and the Japanese. "

" We don't know that Venus had oceans, but there's every reason to believe it did. "

" I'd been politically active ever since my parents wheeled me in a stroller in a 'ban the bomb' march in Boston in 1963. "

" We definitely don't want to go through another Ice Age or another natural cycle of global warming. Both happen over a long period of time. It would be disastrous for our civilization, and not just for us but many other species. "

David Grinspoon

Time

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