“The first arrival of earthly life on another celestial body ranks as a...” — Martin Rees Quote

“The first arrival of earthly life on another celestial body ranks as an epochal event not only for our generation, but in the history of our planet. Neil Armstrong was at the cusp of the Apollo programme. This was a collective technological effort of epic scale, but his is the one name sure to be remembered centuries hence.”

“Scientists habitually moan that the public doesn't understand them. But they complain too much: public ignorance isn't peculiar to science. It's sad if some citizens can't tell a proton from a protein. But it's equally sad if they're ignorant of their nation's history, can't speak a second language, or can't find Venezuela or Syria on a map.”

“A monkey is unaware that atoms exist. Likewise, our brainpower may not stretch to the deepest aspects of reality. The bedrock nature of space and time, and the structure of our entire universe, may remain 'open frontiers' beyond human grasp.”

“The challenge of global warming should stimulate a whole raft of manifestly benign innovations - for conserving energy and generating it by 'clean' means (biofuels, innovative renewables, carbon sequestration, and nuclear fusion).”

“Most theorists suspect that space has an intricate structure - that it is 'grainy' - but that this structure is on a much finer scale than any known subatomic particle. The structure could be of an exotic kind: extra dimensions, over and above the three that we are used to (up and down, backward and forward, left and right).”

“The audience at the Apollo took no prisoners. They would boo you in a second. It was better than any schooling that I ever had when it came to the arts because you were out on that stage and you had to make it work.”

“I was with Tom Wolfe at the launch of Apollo 17, which led him to 'The Right Stuff.'”

“I think if you were between maybe 6 and 16, there was nothing like Apollo, and I wonder if there can be something like that again. We'll just have to see.”

“A typical smart phone has more computing power than Apollo 11 when it landed a man on the moon.”

“It was Apollo 8 that first showed us the tiny blue marble of Earth floating in the void of space, one of the great psychological shifts in human history. From out there, we can both appreciate and begin to solve the problems of our world in ways unavailable to us otherwise.”

“I wanted to play the Apollo because I didn't think I was going to be on the earth long.”