To me, nothing is more important than understanding the Universe around us. It's a vast tapestry, an interwoven puzzle, and we are a part of that fabric. To explore and investigate the Universe is to understand ourselves better, and this surely must be the noblest of all things we can do. If we close our eyes, bury our heads in the sand, then at best we might miss something amazing, and at worst we may doom ourselves to never being *able* to pull our heads back out. // Everything about our society today - our technology, our economy, our medicine, our ability to communicate with each other - depends directly on our implementation of science. The public must understand this if we are to survive and grow.