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" Once we become a multiplanet species, our chances to live long and prosper will take a huge leap skyward. "
David Grinspoon
Leap
Chances
Become
Related Quotes:
" 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
" Mars does not have an atmosphere and does not have a magnetic field today, so the planet doesn't have the protection from radiation that our atmosphere and magnetic fields provide us on Earth. "
David Grinspoon
Earth
Mars
Protection
" A lot of the science fiction that I grew up reading was written when we still thought that Venus might be an oceanic planet. "
David Grinspoon
Reading
Science
Up
" 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
" 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
" 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
" The planet Mars - crimson and bright, filling our telescopes with vague intimations of almost-familiar landforms - has long formed a celestial tabula rasa on which we have inscribed our planetological theories, utopian fantasies, and fears of alien invasion or ecological ruin. "
David Grinspoon
Bright
Mars
Planet
" My high-school friends and I felt part of a community of smart, forward-looking space and technology freaks. "
David Grinspoon
Community
Smart
Space
" In my Ph.D. thesis, written in 1989, I discussed the fact that when a civilization develops the technology to prevent catastrophic asteroid impacts, it marks a significant moment in the evolution of the planet. "
David Grinspoon
Technology
Fact
Evolution
" 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
" The story of our species is one of overcoming existential risk through new forms of cooperation and innovation. "
David Grinspoon
Story
Innovation
New
" 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
" 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
" 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'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
" 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. "
David Grinspoon
Better
Why
Path
" 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
" I'm a strong advocate of new missions to Venus. "
David Grinspoon
Strong
Venus
New
" In environments that are energy-rich but liquid-poor, like near the surface of Titan, natural selection may favor organisms that use their metabolic heat to melt their own watering holes. "
David Grinspoon
Favor
Heat
Natural
" Earth is going to lose its oceans in the future, just as Venus did in the past. How long planets retain their oceans is a function of distance from the sun, all other things being equal. "
David Grinspoon
Sun
Past
Long
" Venus and Mars are our next of kin: they are the two most Earth-like planets that we know about. They're the only two other very Earth-like planets in our solar system, meaning they orbit close to the sun; they have rocky surfaces and thin atmospheres. "
David Grinspoon
Two
Know
Solar
" 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
" It's quite possible that the end of us will not be the end of the Earth. Even if we really screw things up and things go badly for us and our civilization, the Earth is pretty resilient. "
David Grinspoon
Earth
Civilization
Will
" You cannot study other planets without referring to Earth and without applying the techniques and the insights of Earth science. And you cannot really do a good job understanding the Earth without the insights from planetary exploration. "
David Grinspoon
Science
Earth
Good
" 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
" 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
" 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. "
David Grinspoon
Time
Best
Stars
" 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
" Mars does not belong to 'America,' nor to Earth, nor to human beings. "
David Grinspoon
America
Belong
Earth