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There are so many previously unknown sites and structures all over the world. And I think most importantly what satellites help to show us is we've actually only found a fraction of a percent of ancient settlements and sites all over the world.

If you get asteroids about a kilometer in size, those are large enough and carry enough energy into our system to disrupt transportation, communication, the food chains, and that can be a really bad day on Earth.

There are improbable things suspended in space, like the earth.

There are definitely parts of Asia, Central America that when you look at them from space, you're always looking through a haze of pollution. As far as the atmosphere is concerned, and being able to see the surface, you know, I would say definitely those areas that I mentioned look kind of sick.

Ironically, it is only when disaster strikes that the shuttle makes the headlines. Its routine flights attracted less media interest than unmanned probes to the planets or the images from the Hubble Telescope. The fate of Columbia (like that of Challenger in 1986) reminded us that space is still a hazardous environment.

It was remarkable to see from space how predictable people are. Our homes and towns are almost all in places with moderate temperatures, and they generally have the same shape - a thinly occupied outer blob of suburb surrounding a densely populated core, all based around a ready source of water.

Everything that is bad, the falling sickness - God save the mark - or the like, should be at its worst at the full moon. I suppose because it is the leader of the stars.

The denser places get, the lower the amount of energy people use to get around it.

To understand how quickly we're cooking the planet, we need good data. To have good data, we need good satellites.