Growing up in Highland Park, in high school, I had some very influential teachers: I had a math teacher who taught calculus that helped me learn to be in love with mathematics; I had a chemistry teacher who inspired us to work what was in the class and to go beyond.

As a young boy growing up on the South Side of Chicago, I was inspired by the nascent space age.

I see no difference between scientific exploration and human exploration.

I think that space exploration as a broad activity is the most important things that humans can do. I've always found it fascinating, interesting, compelling, and I have a drive to go out into space.

Climate scientists have long pointed to the Southwest as one of the places in the U.S. that is most vulnerable to global warming impacts, especially drought. And if there's one thing that even climate denialists don't dispute, dry things burn.

Israel welcomes the wind of change, and sees a window of opportunity. Democratic and science-based economies by nature desire peace. Israel does not want to be an island of affluence in an ocean of poverty. Improvements in our neighbours' lives mean improvements to the neighbourhood in which we live.

It is the public that is illiterate in science and math, a lazy press, and environmental advocacy groups that manufacture fear for misconceptions about energy.

I've grown accustomed to hotels and drastic climate change.