The first colony on Mars is not going to be built by a private company. How are you going to make money? You're not.
Interpretation
The quote suggests that the establishment of the first colony on Mars will not be primarily driven by profit motives.
In this quote, Neil Degrasse Tyson emphasizes that the endeavor to build a colony on Mars transcends traditional economic motivations. It highlights the importance of exploration and human progress over monetary gain, indicating that such monumental projects require a vision that prioritizes scientific curiosity and human advancement rather than financial profits.
In practice
In a speech about human exploration, you might quote this to inspire people to think beyond profit.
The problem is that many people operate on the assumption that NASA should go to Congress every year with hat in hand and justify it every year. Well, I see it as the greatest economic driver that there ever was. Economic drivers don't need justification.
The press still thinks [global warming] is controversial. So they find the 1% of the scientists and put them up as if they're 50% of the research results. You in the public would have no idea that this is basically a done deal and that we're on to other problems, because the journalists are trying to give it a 50/50 story. It's not a 50/50 story. It's not. Period.
As a scientist, I want to go to Mars and back to asteroids and the Moon because I'm a scientist. But I can tell you, I'm not so naive a scientist to think that the nation might not have geopolitical reasons for going into space.
In just one year, the expenditure of of the U.S.'s military budget is equivalent to the entire 50-year running budget of NASA combined.
One of my great laments is that education today seems to have... be less about passion and more about process, more about tactic or technique.
Lots of people think, well, we're humans; we're the most intelligent and accomplished species; we're in charge. Bacteria may have a different outlook: more bacteria live and work in one linear centimeter of your lower colon than all the humans who have ever lived. That's what's going on in your digestive tract right now. Are we in charge, or are we simply hosts for bacteria? It all depends on your outlook.
The human race has a yearning to explore. That's part of our biological and psychological makeup.
A technical solution may be defined as one that requires a change only in the techniques of the natural sciences, demanding little or nothing in the way of change in human values or ideas of morality.
All our behaviours are a result of neurophysiological activity in the brain.
In future, children won't perceive the stars as mere twinkling points of light: they'll learn that each is a 'Sun', orbited by planets fully as interesting as those in our Solar system.
The history of astronomy is a history of receding horizons.
You have that one basic string, but it can vibrate in many ways. But we're trying to get a lot of particles because experimental physicists have discovered a lot of particles.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.