Instead of being able to look at smaller interesting research projects, I am trying to see the links between all the research NASA does. For me, that's extremely fun because I get to go play and learn about areas of science that I know nothing about.

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

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

I live an hour from NASA's HQ in Washington, D.C., and sitting in a jam stresses me out.

Ellen Stofan

I'm actually a NASA brat. My father was a rocket scientist. He started working at NASA before it was NASA in 1959.

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

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

People see space as a place where you go and cooperate.

Ellen Stofan

As a card-carrying space nerd and NASA's chief scientist, I love space movies, from 'Star Trek' to 'Star Wars' to my all-time favorite - 'The Dish', an Australian comedy that celebrates that first moment when Neil Armstrong stepped down onto the surface of our moon.

Ellen Stofan

If I had an unlimited budget, I would really be probing that question of life because we know what the questions are, and we know what the destinations are.

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

Water-based life is very much an Earth-centric view, and we can push the envelope on that here in our own solar system. We have the methane seas of Titan.

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

My key aim is to get man on the surface of Mars by the mid-2030s.

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

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

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

I wish someone would redo 'Dune.'

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 want to make sure we get living astronauts to the surface of Mars.

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