For most of American history, there’s been science and nay-sayers to science. There’s been a line in the sand where the power of the nay-sayers hasn’t risen. Lately it has risen. And so, I don’t know what the future of those roadblocks are. All I can say is, if they succeed…. We’re a free country, so you can vote whoever you want into office. I’m not here to tell you who to vote for. But I will tell you the consequences of certain decisions that may be a part of the platform of who you do vote for. If you’re voting for someone who resists the progress of science– who sees science as an enemy of a philosophy that they carry– okay then you start squashing science in our culture. That’s the end of our economic security going forward. We’re already ebbing. That will just send it into reverse. And then everything you’ve ever valued about the wealth of this nation will evaporate, practically overnight. That is the consequence of it. If that’s how you want to vote, just be aware that that’s what is going to happen. I’ll be on the next boat to the country that values science and engineering, and so will every other scientist and engineer. And the United States will recede back to the cave.

If you look at how old the universe is, and how prevalent the ingredients of life are everywhere we look, and how quickly life began on Earth given the opportunity to do so. A couple hundred million years, which is short given the age of the earth. Then to deny the possibility of life elsewhere in the galaxy would be inexcusably egocentric. If you feel strongly that there’s no life– you part the curtains, typically there is some other philosophy you’re bringing to bear; religious philosophy where you choose not to accept the data that strongly tells us that life is likely– not simply possible.

I don’t want to be the laughing-stock of the aliens in the galaxy if they find out that we went extinct from an asteroid that we had the power to deflect, but didn’t fully fund the space program to enable it. So the dinosaurs– you know if they had a space program, they would have been all over that asteroid. Then they’d still be here and we’d be running under foot, so I’m glad they didn’t have a space program.