Mae Jemison

“I believe the biggest impediment we have right now with going to Mars is public commitment. More people need to see themselves as a part of space travel; we need to see more inclusiveness.”

“The fact we don't have a lunar base has nothing to do with the technology. It has to do with public commitment and societal support.”

“I want to make sure that that future that we're creating is one that is the best it can be for people around the world, and also one that includes the full range of our talent and our skills - and, you know, gender and ethnicity, geography - to solving the world's problems.”

“I think we know how to do Mars.”

“Some people say they feel very small when they think about space. I felt more expansive, very connected to the universe.”

“The drills we do, where you're telling kids to memorize things, don't actually work. What works is engaging them and letting them do things and discover things.”

“Sometimes parents squash students' interests because they are afraid of science or math. So they don't participate. You don't have to know the answers to engage kids; you just have to let them know it's important.”

“The level of confidence women are able to build in women-only groups is important.”

“I think science fiction helps us think about possibilities, to speculate - it helps us look at our society from a different perspective. It lets us look at our mores, using science as the backdrop, as the game changer.”

“The reality is that we know that this universe, that our galaxy, has billions of stars. We know that stars have planets. So the likelihood that there is life somewhere else to me is just absolutely there.”

“I like to think of ideas as potential energy. They're really wonderful, but nothing will happen until we risk putting them into action.”

“The biggest challenge we all face is to learn about ourselves and to understand our strengths and weaknesses. We need to utilize our strengths, but not so much that we don't work on our weaknesses.”

“When I left NASA, I was looking at how you could use space technologies for developing countries' work.”

“We put water down into the earth to push up gas, then we say, 'Ooh, we're having a water crisis.' This is foolishness, and this kind of foolishness, where we try to excuse human behavior, is dangerous.”

“I think that people need an adrenalin rush. Folks need something aspirational; they need to do something that is hard. That's what ignites the imagination.”

“People put themselves in difficult situations in lots of different areas. What you count on is people taking every precaution. The aerospace industry is unique in this aspect because a thousandths-of-an-inch mistake can cause spectacular failures.”

“I'd love to go into space again if there were a mission to Mars. I'd also love to go to a completely different planetary system, out of our solar system.”

“I stayed in the astronaut program until 1993. People ask me why I left. I thought I had a lot of things to contribute that would be difficult to do if I stayed. I thought I could have a stronger voice as an advocate for space exploration. So I ended up starting my own technology consulting company.”

“Science provides an understanding of a universal experience. Arts provide a universal understanding of a personal experience.”

“Kids come out of the chute liking science. They ask, 'How come? Why? What's this?' They pick up stuff to examine it. We might not call that science, but it's discovering the world around us.”