Get QuoteDark Inspirational Quotes App

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

David Grinspoon

Related Quotes:

" 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

" 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

" When you think about alien intelligences making art, you then have to think about what art is and how bound up it is in the nature of consciousness. Why do we make art? And what can we expect to have in common with other creatures in universe? "

David Grinspoon

" 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. "

David Grinspoon

" 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

" 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

" 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. "

David Grinspoon

" 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

" 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

" 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

" 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

" 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

" 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

" Now, humans have become a dominant force of planetary change and, thus, we may have entered an eon of post-biological evolution in which cognitive systems have gained a powerful influence on the planet. "

David Grinspoon

" 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

" 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

" 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

" 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

" 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

" 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

" 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

" 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

" 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

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

David Grinspoon

" 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

" 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

" There's something cool about being involved in new missions to other planets. "

David Grinspoon

" 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. "

David Grinspoon

" 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

" 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