Status Updates From Human Universe

I think one of the primary barriers to progress is education. I am a believer in the innate rationality of human beings; given the right education, the right information and the right tuition in how to think about problems, I believe that people will make rational choices.

Science is a time machine, and it goes both ways. We are able to predict our future with increasing certainty. Our ability to act in response to these predictions will ultimately determine our fate. Science and reason make the darkness visible. I worry that lack of investment in science and a retreat from reason may prevent us from seeing further, making a meaningful response impossible.

There is a special chapter on pg 149: also to the brilliance of the engineers on the ground who simply knew their stuff. NASA's Apollo engineers were young by today's standards; the average age of the team in mission control for the splashdown of Apollo 11 was 28 years old and the rest 👌🏻!

Pg 120- One of the most important things to realise about engineering at the edge is that the only way to learn is to actually do it. You can’t think your way into space; you have to fly there. 👌🏻

Pg 124- “ I told them don’t be afraid, I am a Soviet citizen like you, who has descended from space and I must find a telephone to call Moscow!”- Yuri Gagarin