When I talk about my life as a planetary scientist at the Vatican Observatory, I often point out that I deal daily with a huge, inefficient bureaucracy that can drive you to tears. Why do I put up with it? “Because for all its faults, Nasa is the only outfit that got us to the Moon.”

It’s good for a laugh. The comparison between Nasa and that other bureaucracy I deal with daily reminds me (and my audiences) that no one single person can accomplish what a large organisation, for all its faults, can do.