Daniel S. Goldin, the longest-serving administrator in NASA's history, delivered the MIT commencement address in 2001 wearing the academic robes of the University of Padua — the very institution where Galileo Galilei once lectured. Goldin structured his entire speech around Galileo as a model for the graduates, distilling the great scientist's legacy into three core principles. Goldin argued that Galileo's greatness wasn't just in his telescopic discoveries or his defense of heliocentrism, but in his approach to life: an unquenchable commitment to learning, an insistence on excellence, and an unshakeable belief that truth was findable. He urged the MIT graduates to adopt these same principles as they entered a world on the brink of nanotechnology, biomimetics, and space exploration revolutions.