Science has not yet mastered prophecy. We predict too much for the next year and yet far too little for the next 10. It suddenly struck me that that tiny pea, pretty and blue, was the Earth. I put up my thumb and shut one eye, and my thumb blotted out the planet Earth. I didn’t feel like a giant. I felt very, very small.

Science cuts two ways, of course; its products can be used for both good and evil. But there’s no turning back from science. The early warnings about technological dangers also come from science. To be the first to enter the cosmos, to engage, single-handed, in an unprecedented duel with nature—could one dream of anything more?

To go places and do things that have never been done before – that’s what living is all about.

NASA is not about the ‘Adventure of Human Space Exploration’…We won’t be doing it just to get out there in space – we’ll be doing it because the things we learn out there will be making life better for a lot of people who won’t be able to go.

The sky is the limit only for those who aren’t afraid to fly! Where ignorance lurks, so too do the frontiers of discovery and imagination. Dinosaurs are extinct today because they lacked opposable thumbs and the brainpower to build a space program. As I stand out here in the wonders of the unknown at Hadley, I sort of realize there’s a fundamental truth to our nature, Man must explore . . . and this is exploration at its greatest.