Charles Elachiis professorof electrical engineering and planetary science at the California Institute of Technology. From 2001 to 2016 he was director of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and vice president of Caltech... (wikipedia)
Every month we do a bold adventure. This is the golden age of space exploration.
Remote Sensing is defined as the acquisition of information about an object without being in physical contact with it.
We literally are all made out of stardust. We started from those stars; we are made of stardust. So, next time you are really depressed, look in the mirror and you can look and say, 'Hi, I'm looking at a star here.'
We have six wheels in the dirt. Mars now is our sandbox, and we are ready to play and learn. I have to tell you, I've never seen so many people so excited about just seeing two tracks in the dirt.
Now we have a permanent scientific presence on another planet.
We really do have a permanent presence around that planet.
With the agency's go-ahead, we can proceed with this intriguing mission that will explore two asteroids from deep in the heart of the asteroid belt.
We will never be as close to the rings as that first pass.
We are bringing a piece of the sun down to Earth. That's going to give us some fundamental understanding of our origins.
That is what I am delighted about; the fact that they were having a hard time picking one mission and decided to give it to the collective work that we do at this institution.