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" 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. "
David Grinspoon
Lead
Science
NASA
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" 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. "
David Grinspoon
Enough
Off
Pain
" 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. "
David Grinspoon
New
Challenges
Finding
" 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
Go
Time
Want
" It is said that Mahatma Gandhi, when asked about Western civilization, remarked, 'I think it would be a good idea.' That's how I feel about intelligent life on Earth, especially when I think about the question of what truly intelligent life might look like elsewhere in the universe. "
David Grinspoon
Earth
Life
Look
" 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. "
David Grinspoon
New
Age
Challenges
" We don't know that Venus had oceans, but there's every reason to believe it did. "
David Grinspoon
Know
Reason
Venus
" 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. "
David Grinspoon
NASA
World
Principles
" We can look out on an alien landscape that no one has seen before and find it beautiful. "
David Grinspoon
Landscape
Look
Find
" 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
" The hallmark of the human species is great adaptability. "
David Grinspoon
Hallmark
Species
Great
" Mars does not belong to 'America,' nor to Earth, nor to human beings. "
David Grinspoon
America
Belong
Earth
" As a kid, I became a total SF geek. It started in the 5th grade with Asimov's 'Lucky Starr' series of what would now be called 'young adult' novels of adventures in the solar system. "
David Grinspoon
Young
Now
Solar
" There is a real danger of unintended consequences, of encouraging people to give up. Pessimism, if it becomes a habit, can reinforce a narrative of unstoppable decline. If there is nothing we can do, that releases us from our obligations. "
David Grinspoon
Nothing
People
Consequences
" 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
" 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. "
David Grinspoon
Perspective
Space
Science
" 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
" Even as our unwitting alterations to Earth's carbon and hydrological cycles slowly make storms more damaging, our ability to monitor our planet from space and make reliable short-term forecasts have equipped us enormously to withstand them. "
David Grinspoon
Space
Storms
Ability
" 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
" I'd like to jump a couple hundred years into the future and work with the scientists who are getting back the first information from our probes to planets orbiting nearby stars. "
David Grinspoon
Stars
Future
Work
" We need to have a vision of the world we want to create so that we can see ourselves as collaborators with future generations in the project of shaping it. "
David Grinspoon
Future
Create
Vision
" 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
" Humans are possessed, to some degree, with the power of foresight. Yet we so often learn things the hard way, through disaster. "
David Grinspoon
Disaster
Some
Way
" We're going to stop looking at Earth from orbit because we don't like what we are seeing and the conclusions that leads us to? That's nonsense. "
David Grinspoon
Earth
Stop
Seeing
" 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
" We have all this very clever technology and all these abilities to manipulate the world in all these ways, yet we are faced with the very real question of whether we can be sustainable on this planet - whether or not, in fact, we can endure. "
David Grinspoon
Technology
Question
Clever
" I think Pluto has to be considered among the places in the solar system that are possible homes for life. "
David Grinspoon
Places
Think
Solar
" I'm a strong advocate of new missions to Venus. "
David Grinspoon
Strong
Venus
New
" Even cynical, selfish people will realize, one way or the other, that it's not in their self-interest to act in self-destructive ways. "
David Grinspoon
Will
Selfish
Act
" Our most valuable resources - creativity, communication, invention, and reinvention - are, in fact, unlimited. "
David Grinspoon
Communication
Creativity
Invention
" There's no question to my mind that saving our civilization and many other species is more important than our ability to do ground-based astronomy for a few decades. "
David Grinspoon
Question
Mind
Important