Adriana Marais

Adriana Marais (born August 15, 1983) is a South African theoretical physicist, technologist and advocate for off-world exploration. She is a director of the Foundation for Space Development Africa, an organisation aiming to send Africa's first mission to the Moon, the Africa2Moon Project. She is the founder of Proudly Human, an initiative of which is the Off-World Project, a series of habitation experiments in Earth's most extreme environments. For her research in quantum biology and the origins of life, she received awards including the 2015 L'Oreal-UNESCO International Rising Talent Award.

Quotes

 * I feel that many of us are often not open to seeing the bigger picture. Perhaps, in this era of information inundation, we prefer or feel more comfortable forgetting how much we still don’t know.
 * ''[https://tedxcapetown.org/videos/watch-space-adriana-marais TedxCapeTown (15 August 2015)


 * I would like to point out that all the information we have gathered, all the observations we have made, have resulted from exploring the unknown.
 * ''[https://tedxcapetown.org/videos/watch-space-adriana-marais TedxCapeTown (15 August 2015)


 * Life on Mars will be a precious and fragile resource, and I believe morality there will be defined by a deep appreciation for life and all that’s needed to sustain it, and I believe that this attitude will filter down to Earth.
 * ''[https://tedxcapetown.org/videos/watch-space-adriana-marais TedxCapeTown (15 August 2015)