I live an hour from NASA’s HQ in Washington, D.C., and sitting in a jam stresses me out. – Ellen Stofan
I always like to say just think you were a doctor with only one patient. You might understand how that person gets sick, how they get better, but you understand nothing about the progression of disease or how humans in general get ill. Now take an Earth scientist: you only have one planet to study. – Ellen Stofan
We’re not going to get humans to Mars until at least the mid-2030s, and the world is going to change by then. – Ellen Stofan
One of the big things about space exploration is that it is as expensive as it is complicated, and you need all the countries of the world to help if you want to accomplish big goals. – Ellen Stofan
So many people I talk to who work in technology, you ask them, ‘What got you interested in science?’ and those from my generation say, ‘The Apollo landings.’ – Ellen Stofan
With the mission to Mars, the whole world wants to get involved. So we actually have 13 different space agencies from around the world working on the global exploration road map. – Ellen Stofan
As chief scientist, it’s sort of my job to look at bridges between what we do and to see the connections. But when we try to understand how are planets around other stars habitable… to looking back at the Earth – how are the changes that are taking place, how are they going to affect humanity? – Ellen Stofan
To avoid congestion, I get up at 5:10, grab a slice of raisin toast, and leave the house at 6 A.M. My husband, Tim Dunn, who works for an environmental agency, is still asleep when I slip out, and I find that rather annoying. – Ellen Stofan
What we expect to find, certainly in our own solar system, are probably simple single or multiple-cell forms of life. To get to intelligent life takes stability of conditions over huge, long periods of time. – Ellen Stofan
Communication is an issue where we can improve, and if I can do anything to help, I am happy to. – Ellen Stofan
Humans can actually read a landscape, go through a lot of rocks – crack them open, throw them, pick up the next one. Rovers are great – they do amazing science – but it is a lot more tedious process; they go much less far than a human can cover in a day. – Ellen Stofan
It’s part of the human character to want to know what’s over the next hill, to want to know what’s beyond. – Ellen Stofan
A lot of my role is advocacy, and as a scientist, you’re an advocate, too, because you are coming up with a theory and having to convince your fellow scientists that you’re right. – Ellen Stofan
As we visit Mars multiple times, we will build up infrastructure on the surface to expand the capabilities and reach of humans on Mars. – Ellen Stofan
You see countries like India really investing in their space program because they see it as inspirational and good for their economy. – Ellen Stofan
Being able to have a laboratory on Mars, being able to have some sort of sustained human presence on Mars in the future, I think, is critically important for science. – Ellen Stofan
If you think of the Apollo capsule coming into Earth with a parachute, the Mars atmosphere is just so thin, you’ve got to find some way of slowing yourself down really rapidly. – Ellen Stofan
Everybody has busy lives, but you can tell people, ‘Go outside and look at the night sky. We’ve been able to demonstrate that every star you see probably has a planet around it.’ – Ellen Stofan
We actually look to the scientific community to kind of come back to NASA and tell us what the priorities should be. And then at NASA, we try to look within our budget and say, ‘What can we accommodate, and what are the most important things for the nation?’ – Ellen Stofan
To unambiguously settle the questions of whether there was life on Mars, it will take scientists down on the surface. – Ellen Stofan
We like to talk about pioneering Mars rather than just exploring Mars, because once we get to Mars, we will set up some sort of permanent presence. – Ellen Stofan
Every time I give a talk, I ask the audience – especially if it’s kids – how many want to go to Mars. At least half raise their hands. I don’t think there’s going to be any shortage of volunteers. – Ellen Stofan
