Home
Authors
Tags
App
Get QuoteDark Inspirational Quotes App
" I think chemists always think they know more than they know, because nature has a lot of possible pathways it can try. "
David Grinspoon
Try
Always
Know
Related Quotes:
" 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? "
David Grinspoon
Fast
Cloud
You
" I was a science fiction geek from an early age, enthralled by the questions of life in the universe. As I got older, I learned that space exploration was real. I wanted to get involved in that. I knew I wanted to be a scientist. "
David Grinspoon
Space
Age
Life
" I intend to apply the perspective of astrobiology, which is a deep-time way of looking at life on Earth, towards the question of the Anthropocene. What does the human phenomenon on Earth look like viewed from an interplanetary perspective? "
David Grinspoon
Earth
Life
Perspective
" Our most valuable resources - creativity, communication, invention, and reinvention - are, in fact, unlimited. "
David Grinspoon
Communication
Creativity
Invention
" I think the best SF writers are very aware of what we, in the scientific community, are doing, thinking, and discovering. "
David Grinspoon
Think
Thinking
Community
" 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? "
David Grinspoon
Wonder
Start
Earth
" We're pretty sure there's plenty of organic material on Pluto. The atmosphere is largely methane, and in sunlight, methane builds organic molecules. We see reddish stuff on the surface that we think is organic material. "
David Grinspoon
See
Pretty
Sunlight
" When I first went to college, I went into physics, and my goal was to help perfect nuclear fusion so I could solve the energy crisis and global warming. I probably would have done it, too, if I'd stuck to it. "
David Grinspoon
College
Help
Perfect
" Whenever I see a nighttime picture of Earth from space, with its glowing lights, I am stirred by its beauty. "
David Grinspoon
I Am
Beauty
Space
" It's OK to pursue speculative ideas because we don't want to be too cozy and safe and assume that we know everything about life in the universe. However, we have to be rigorous and careful and honest and logical and scientifically meticulous when we speculate. "
David Grinspoon
Universe
Want
Ideas
" The story of our species is one of overcoming existential risk through new forms of cooperation and innovation. "
David Grinspoon
Story
Innovation
New
" There are other planets besides the Earth and Mars. I'd like to remind you that studying Venus is vital to understanding life elsewhere. "
David Grinspoon
You
Understanding
Life
" The future peopling of Mars is much more than a scientific endeavor. It is a step of historic and spiritual importance for the human race. "
David Grinspoon
Race
Step
Spiritual
" Certainly for me, as an astrobiologist, science fiction has played an important role. One of the quandaries of our field is that we are trying to study and search for something - life - that we can't define in a rigorous way. We only have one example of a biosphere, so we can't really give a good definition. "
David Grinspoon
Life
Good
Trying
" There's eco-pragmatism, where you recognize, 'Yeah, we live on a planet that's permanently altered by humanity, and rather than seek to return to or preserve pure wilderness, we recognize that's an illusion, and we proceed under the new knowledge that we live, in fact, in a human-dominated planet.' "
David Grinspoon
Illusion
Wilderness
Live
" It turns out one of my dad's best friends was Carl Sagan when I was little. They were both Harvard professors. "
David Grinspoon
Dad
Out
Little
" We have to learn to become a new kind of entity on this world that has the maturity and the awareness to handle being a global species with the power to change our planet and use that power in a way that is conducive to the kind of global society we want to have. "
David Grinspoon
Maturity
Change
World
" We've almost been wiped out as a species many times, going back millions of years, and we've survived by reinventing ourselves and enlarging our circles of awareness, inventing new technologies and social structures. "
David Grinspoon
Awareness
Out
Back
" I'm an astrobiologist, and I come from a planetary science background, so in a very broad sense, I study the evolution of planetary environments. "
David Grinspoon
Evolution
Study
Sense
" I'd been politically active ever since my parents wheeled me in a stroller in a 'ban the bomb' march in Boston in 1963. "
David Grinspoon
Active
Been
Boston
" Ever since the environmental movement was sparked by photos of the whole Earth taken by astronauts onboard Apollo Lunar Modules, I've seen planetary exploration as an extension of a reverence and care for Earth. "
David Grinspoon
Exploration
Environmental
Earth
" It's one of the big mysteries about Venus: How did it get so different from Earth when it seems likely to have started so similarly? The question becomes richer when you consider astrobiology, the possibility that Venus and Earth were very similar during the time of the origin of life on Earth. "
David Grinspoon
Earth
Life
Question
" We can look out on an alien landscape that no one has seen before and find it beautiful. "
David Grinspoon
Landscape
Look
Find
" We don't know that Venus had oceans, but there's every reason to believe it did. "
David Grinspoon
Know
Reason
Venus
" Literally, my earliest memory, my earliest vivid memory, is the Apollo 11 landing on the Moon. Yeah, I was in fourth grade, and I was just so captivated. And I think you'll find a lot of space scientists of my generation will say the same thing. Apollo was a big event for them. "
David Grinspoon
Think
Moon
Memory
" Among the plausible niches for extraterrestrial life in our solar system, the clouds of Venus are among the most accessible and the least well explained. "
David Grinspoon
Life
System
Well
" Titan has rivers and lakes of liquid methane and ethane, methane weather systems of clouds and storms that mirror Earth's hydrologic cycle, and seasonal cycles that rival Earth's in complexity. "
David Grinspoon
Mirror
Storms
Clouds
" Astrobiology is a great point of contact for science outreach. The public is naturally interested in extra-terrestrial life. Astrobiology provides an accessible point of access that leads to deeper questions. "
David Grinspoon
Questions
Point
Great
" I do comparative studies of climate evolution, and the interactions between planetary atmosphere and surfaces and their radiation environment, and try to understand the environmental factors that can affect a planet's habitability and how they change over time. "
David Grinspoon
Environment
Time
Environmental
" Responsible global behaviour is ultimately an act of self-preservation of, by, and for the global beast that modern technological humanity has become. "
David Grinspoon
Become
Technological
Beast