Ellen Stofan Quotes

The practical case for manned spacef light gets ever-weaker with each advance in robots and miniaturisation - indeed, as a scientist or practical man, I see little purpose in sending people into space at all. But as a human being, I'm an enthusiast for manned missions.

We should stop wasting taxpayer funds on ridiculously expensive government missions to nowhere that return little value and blaze no useful trail for others to follow. Of course we should spend much more on science - and yes, use robots to do that science when it makes sense.

We have to be plumbers, electricians, construction engineers, or workers, on the space station, but at the same time running a laboratory, being scientists, being the best laboratory assistants we can be. It's all in a bundle; it's very exciting, it's a lot of fun.

There are many experiments and a great deal of research that can be performed on the station that make a difference in our lives and we are committed to supporting this important vocation.

The space program is not only scientific in purpose but also is an expression of man's insistent determination to do the nearly impossible - to explore the unknown, even at great risk.

The future of society is 100% dependent on scientific advances.

Being able to have a laboratory on Mars, being able to have some sort of sustained human presence on Mars in the future, I think, is critically important for science.

I read science, because to me, that's extremely exciting. It's like a great detective story, and it's happening right in front of us.

We are the only country with an operating rover on Mars. We are an amazing country on tech.

In the 20th century, we had a century where at the beginning of the century, most of the world was agricultural and industry was very primitive. At the end of that century, we had men in orbit, we had been to the moon, we had people with cell phones and colour televisions and the Internet and amazing medical technology of all kinds.

We are not particularly interested in the prestige of space, but in the scientific aspects of it.

We are not building the space station for science any more than we went to the moon for science, but we got a hell of a lot of good science out of it.

Science does not just drive space travel - space travel also drives science.

Anything humans can do in space, robots can do better.

This is a really big space station. We do a lot of various kinds of work here, different kinds of science experiments; we have over 400 different experiments going on at any one time in different areas, from basic science research to medical technology, that hopefully will benefit more people on Earth.

To help enable the kind of science Hubble is performing makes my life worthwhile.

We do a lot of science on the space station. Over the course of the year, there'll be 400 to 500 different investigations in all different kinds of disciplines. Some are related to improving life on earth in material science, physics, combustion science, earth sciences, medicine.

It's so astounding the amount of sacrifice the astronauts have to go through to do what they do and all the science involved in space exploration.

The big lesson of planetary science is when you do a first reconnaissance of a new kind of object, you should expect the unexpected.

Hubble isn't just a satellite; it's about humanity's quest for knowledge.

Robots are important also. If I don my pure-scientist hat, I would say just send robots; I'll stay down here and get the data. But nobody's ever given a parade for a robot. Nobody's ever named a high school after a robot. So when I don my public-educator hat, I have to recognize the elements of exploration that excite people. It's not only the discoveries and the beautiful photos that come down from the heavens; it's the vicarious participation in discovery itself.

We want to take AI and CIFAR to wonderful new places, where no person, no student, no program has gone before.

Why do you do science? In this particular case, we don't have a very good reason to be doing this except for the knowledge that it brings. This research is especially important to young people. We all want to know what's going on in the universe.

Everything that humans can do a machine can do.

I invented an algorithm for starting micro turbo-molecular vacuum pumps to be used in science instruments on a future Mars rover.