Space Quotes "There is an art... to flying. The knack lies in learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss."
-Douglass Adams, "The Hitchhikers Guide to the Universe" "For forty-nine months between 1968 and 1972 two dozen Americans had the great good fortune to briefly visit the Moon. Half of us became the first emissaries from Earth to tread its dusty surface. We who did so were privileged to represent the hopes and dreams of all humanity. For mankind it was a giant leap for a species that evolved from the stone age to create sophisticated rockets and spacecraft that made a Moon landing possible. For one crowning moment, we were creatures of the cosmic ocean, an epoch that a thousand years hence may be seen as the signature of our century."
-Edwin ""Buzz" Aldrin Jr. "Interestingly, according to modern astronomers, space is finite. This is a very comforting thought - particularly for people who cannot remember where they left things."
-Woody Allen "In the press grandstand where I watched Discovery rise against the cloudless sky, the media hit the abort button on cynicism. The Earth shook to the sounds of man, three miles away. The candle lit. . . only someone stripped of awe can leave a launch untouched."
-Jonathan Alter "That's one small step for [a] man; one giant leap for mankind."
-Neil Armstrong, first words spoken by a man walking on another planet or moon, July 20, 1969. "Houston, Tranquility Base here, the Eagle has landed."
-Neil Armstrong, 3:18 p.m. Houston time July 20, 1969. "It suddenly struck me that that tiny pea, pretty and blue, was the Earth. I put up my thumb and shut one eye, and my thumb blotted out the planet Earth. I didn't feel like a giant. I felt very, very small."
-Neil Armstrong "The air is the most mysterious, the most exciting, the most challenging of all the elements. We leave the planet, we leave the sea, we leave the earth. The air is no longer of this world . . ."
-David Beaty "And now 'tis man who dares assault the sky . . .
And as we come to claim our promised place,
Aim only to repay the good you gave,
And warm with human love the chill of space."
-Prof. Thomas G. Bergin, 'Space Prober.' This was the first poem to be launched into orbit about the Earth. It was inscribed on the instrument panel of a satellite called Traac launched from Cape Kennedy on November 15, 1961. "What good is the Moon? You can't buy it or sell it."
-Ivan F.. Boesky Ten billion eyes on Earth look up and ask, "What good's a universe that's NOT explored?"
-Ray Bradbury, "Windows on the Universe" "Mars is the way-station on our journey to our greater selves and our possible immortality."
-Ray Bradbury "Those who study the stars have God for a teacher."
-Tycho Brahe "Man is an artifact designed for space travel. He is not designed to remain in his present biologic state any more than a tadpole is designed to remain a tadpole."
-William Burroughs "Space exploration is not just for any one country anymore. It's incumbent on all of us to participate... We're going to go back to the Moon, on to Mars and beyond. And we're going to do it as a united team. What we're doing on the International Space Station is laying the groundwork. This is a stepping-stone to the future."
-Bob Cabana "For astronomy is not only pleasant, but is also useful to be known; it cannot be denied that this art unfolds the admirable wisdom of God."
-John Calvin "Godspeed, John Glenn."
-Scott Carpenter, spoken as Friendship 7 lifted off February 20, 1962 ". . . as we leave the Moon at Taurus Littrow, we leave as we came and, God willing, as we shall return, with peace and hope for all mankind. Godspeed the crew of Apollo 17.
OK, let's get this mother out of here."
-Eugene Cernan, Apollo 17 Commander. Last words spoken on the moon. "The mass gross absence of sound in space is more than just silence."
-Eugene Cernan "The world itself looks cleaner and so much more beautiful. Maybe we can make it that way -- the way God intended it to be -- by giving everybody that new perspective from out in space."
-Roger B. Chaffee "Climb far, your goal the sky, your aim the star."
-S. Chammfort "The moon is the first milestone on the road to the stars."
-Arthur C. Clarke "We will all, before long, be thanking our lucky stars that we had the vision to work with people from around the world to set up the international space station in the sky. From it, we will explore vast new frontiers, chart unexplored seas, reach a little deeper into the vast final frontier."
-President Bill Clinton "Earthbound souls know only the underside of the atmosphere in which they live . . . but go higher - above the dust and water vapor - and the sky turns dark until one can see the stars at noon."
-Jacqueline Cochran "It's not quite as exhilarating a feeling as orbiting the earth, but it's close. In addition, it has an exotic, bizarre quality due entirely to the nature of the surface below. The earth from orbit is a delight - offering visual variety and an emotional feeling of belonging "down there." Not so with this withered, sun-seared peach pit out of my window. There is no comfort to it; it is too stark and barren; its invitation is monotonous and meant for geologists only."
-Michael Collins, 'Carrying the Fire.'< "This beast is best felt. Shake, rattle, and roll. We are thrown left and right against our straps in spasmodic little jerks. It is steering like crazy, like a nervous lady driving a wide car down a narrow alley, and I just hope it knows where it's going, because for the first ten seconds we are perilously close to that umbilical tower."
-Michael Collins "I really didn't appreciate the first planet [earth] until I saw the second one. . . . I cannot recall [the moon's] tortured surface without thinking of the infinite variety the delightful planet earth offers."
-Michael Collins "We have taken to the Moon the wealth of this nation,
the vision of its political leaders,
the intelligence of its scientists,
the dedication of its engineers,
the careful craftsmanship of its workers,
and the enthusiastic support of its people.
We have brought back rocks, and I think it is a fair trade . . .
Man has always gone where he has been able to go. It's that simple.
He will continue pushing back his frontier,
no matter how far it may carry him from his homeland."
-Michael Collins "It's human nature to stretch, to go, to see, to understand. Exploration is not a choice, really; it's an imperative."
-Michael Collins "Whoopee! Man, that may have been a small one for Neil, but it's a long one for me."
-Charles "Pete" Conrad Jr. "Father, we thank you, especially for letting me fly this flight � for the privilege of being able to be in this position, to be in this wondrous place, seeing all these many startling, wonderful things that you have created."
-L Gordon Cooper Jr. "What was most significant about the lunar voyage was not that man set foot on the moon but that they set eye on the earth."
-Norman Cousins "We learn in space as we go. We're never sure exactly how things are going to work out, but we plan and plan. But the things that we learn that serve us best are the things that we didn't expect."
-Frank Culbertson "When once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward, for there you have been, and there you will always long to return."
� Leonardo da Vinci "By one great heart the universe is stirred; By its strong pulse, stars climb the darkening blue; It throbs in each fresh sunset's changing hue, and thrills through low sweet song of every bird."
-Margaret Deland (from the poem "Life") "You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars. You have a right to be here. And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should."
-Desiderata "Roger, Tranquility. We copy you on the ground. You've got a bunch of guys about to turn blue. We're breathing again. Thanks a lot."
-Charlie Duke, Capcom, Mission Control< "Man's mind and spirit grow with the space in which they are allowed to operate."
-Kraft A. Ehricke
"We shall not cease our explorations, and the end of our exploring will be to arrive back where we started and know the place for the first time."
-T.S. Elliot "But the astronauts who lost their lives on Challenger, as well as the other eight astronauts who were killed in the line of duty and the four Soviet cosmonauts who died in space serve as inspiration for us all. None of them would have wanted to give her or his life in vain. None would have wanted us to stop striving for the stars. If anything, we must continue to preserve their dreams."
-Doug Fulmer "I could have gone on flying through space forever."
-Yuri Gagarin "It was quite a day. I don't know what you can say about a day when you see four beautiful sunsets. . . . This is a little unusual, I think."
-John Glenn "How many more years I shall be able to work on the problem I do not know; I hope, as long as I live. There can be no thought of finishing, for 'aiming at the stars' both literally and figuratively, is a problem to occupy generations, so that no matter how much progress one makes, there is always the thrill of just beginning."
-Robert H. Goddard "If we die, we want people to accept it. We are in a risky business, and we hope that if anything happens to us it will not delay the program. The conquest of space is worth the risk of life."
-Virgil I. Grissom (On January 27, 19667, astronauts Grissom, White, and Chaffee died from a flash fire aboard Apollo 1 Spacecraft.) "Some day people will travel to Mars. It will be a long trip, but fun. This will be a big step for mankind. We would be able to find out if there was life on this planet. It probably will look like a red desert."
-Stephen J. Hartsfield, Seventh Grader,, 1984. "To confine our attention to terrestrial matters would be to limit the human spirit."
-Stephen Hawking "Remember that we can always look backward in time by looking out further into space with our telescopes. The farther into space we look, the closer to the beginning we come"
-Stephen Hawking "Earth is too small a basket for mankind to keep all its eggs in."
-Robert A. Heinlein
"Once you get to earth orbit, you're halfway to anywhere in the solar system."
-Robert A. Heinlein "Our passionate preoccupation with the sky, the stars, and a God somewhere in outer space is a homing impulse. We are drawn back to where we came from."
-Eric Hoffer "History will look back at this era and say we learned how to operate, live, build and assemble in space. It'll serve us well in the future as we go forward to build colonies in space and expeditions to leave Earth orbit."
-Tommy Holloway "Space isn't remote at all. It's only an hour's drive away, if your car could go straight upwards."
-Sir Freed Hoyle "The universe is unfolding as it should."
-Edwin Hubble "The Earth reminded us of a Christmas tree ornament hanging in the blackness of space. As we got farther and farther away it diminished in size. Finally it shrank to the size of a marble, the most beautiful marble you can imagine. That beautiful, warm, living object looked so fragile, so delicate, that if you touched it with a finger it would crumble and fall apart. Seeing this has to change a man."
-James B. Irwin "If I could get one message to you it would be this: the future of this country and the welfare of the free world depends upon our success in space. There is no room in this country for any but a fully cooperative, urgently motivated all-out effort toward space leadership. No one person, no one company, no one government agency, has a monopoly on the competence, the missions, or the requirements for the space program."
-President Lyndon B. Johnson "Space is the stature of God."
-Joseph Joubert, French essayist, moralist "If we are to win the battle that is now going on around the world between freedom and tyranny, the dramatic achievements in space which occurred in recent weeks should have made clear to all of us, as did Sputnik in 1957, the impact of this adventure on the minds of men everywhere... Now it is time to take longer strides-time for this nation to take a clearly leading role in space achievement, which in many ways may hold the key to our future on Earth. ...we have never made the national decisions or marshaled the national resources required for such leadership. We have never specified long-range goals on an urgent time schedule... Space is open to us now; and our eagerness to share its meaning is not governed by the efforts of others. We go into space because whatever mankind must undertake, free men must fully share . . .
I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth. No single space project...will be more exciting, or more impressive to mankind, or more important...and none will be so difficult or expensive to accomplish..."
-President John F. Kennedy, Special Joint Session of Congress, May 25, 1961 "We go into space because whatever mankind must undertake, free men must fully share."
-President John F. Kennedy "We believe that when men reach beyond this planet, they should leave their national differences behind them."
-President John F. Kennedy "Those who came before us made certain that this country rode the first waves of the industrial revolution, the first waves of modern invention and the first wave of nuclear power. And this generation does not intend to founder in the backwash of the coming age of space. We mean to be part of it - we mean to lead it."
-President John F. Kennedy "But why, some say, the moon? Why choose this as our goal? And they may well ask, why climb the highest mountain? Why, 35 years ago, fly the Atlantic? Why does Rice play Texas?"
-President John F. Kennedy "Prometheus is reaching out for the stars with an empty grin on his face."
-Arthur Koestler, regarding the first moon--landing "Whether outwardly or inwardly, whether in space or time, the farther we penetrate the unknown, the vaster and more marvelous it becomes."
-Charles A. Lindbergh "The real friends of the space voyager are the stars."
-James Lovell "From now on we'll live in a world where man has walked on the moon. It's not a miracle, we just decided to go."
-James Lovell "To see the earth as it truly is, small and blue and beautiful in that eternal silence where it floats, is to see ourselves a riders on the earth together, brothers on that bright loveliness in the eternal cold -- brothers who know now they are truly brothers."
-Archibald MacLeish "..space is for everybody. It's not just for a few people in science or math, or for a select group of astronauts. That's our new frontier out there, and it's everybody's business to know about space."
-Christa McAuliffe "We are at a point in history where a proper attention to space, and especially near space, may be absolutely crucial in bringing the world together."
-Margaret Mead "We are stardust. We are golden. We are billion-year-old carbon and we've got to get ourselves back to the garden..."
-Joni Mitchell (Lyrics from "Woodstock") "Treading the soil of the moon, palpating its pebbles, tasting the panic and splendor of the event, feeling in the pit of one's stomach the separation from terra . . . these form the most romantic sensation an explorer has ever known . . . this is the only thing I can say about the matter. The utilitarian results do not interest me."
-Vladimir Nabokov
"Neil and Buzz, I am talking to you by telephone from the Oval Office at the White House, and this certainly has to be the most historic telephone call ever made. . . . Because of what you have done, the heavens have become a part of man's world. As you talk to us from the Sea of Tranquility, it inspires us to redouble our efforts to bring peace and tranquility to Earth."
-President Richard M. Nixon "What fiction could match - in drama or suspense - man's first walk on the Moon?
-Leonard Nimoy, Mr. Spock of "Star Trek" "Man looks aloft, and with erected eyes
Beholds his hereditary skies."
-Ovid "I think a really funny joke would be for NASA to send up rockets and push a bunch of planets out of alignment. Then they could sit back and laugh when everyone realizes that their horoscopes aren't coming true."
-Eric Presbrey "Someday I would like to stand on the moon, look down through a quarter of a million miles of space and say, There certainly is a beautiful earth out tonight."
-Lieutenant Colonel William H. Ranki
"Aviation is proof, that given the will, we have the capacity to achieve the impossible."
-Eddie Rickenbacker "And then, the Earth being small, mankind will migrate into space, and will cross the airless Saharas which separate planet from planet and sun from sun. The Earth will become a Holy Land which will be visited by pilgrims from all the quarters of the Universe. Finally, men will master the forces of Nature; they will become themselves architects of systems, manufacturers of worlds."
-Winwood Reade "Our nation is indeed fortunate that we can still draw on an immense reservoir of courage, character, and fortitude, that we are still blessed with heroes like those of the space shuttle Challenger. Man will continue his conquest of space. To reach out for new goals and ever-greater achievements, that is the way we shall commemorate our seven Challenger heroes."
-President Ronald Reagan "We shall never forget them nor the last time we saw them, as they prepared for their mission and waved good-bye and slipped the surly bonds of Earth to touch the face of God."
-President Ronald Reagan "Through you, we feel as giants, once again."
-President Ronald Reagan, to the crew of Columbia after their completion of the first shuttle mission "Why our space program? Why, indeed, did we trouble to look past the next mountain? Our prime obligation to ourselves is to make the unknown known. We are on a journey to keep an appointment with whatever we are."
-Gene Roddenberry, Executive Producer of "Star Trek"
"The scientific theory I like best is that the rings of Saturn are composed entirely of lost airline luggage."
-Mark Russell
"Our loyalties are to the species and the planet. We speak for Earth. Our obligation to survive is owed not just to ourselves but also to that Cosmos, ancient and vast, from which we spring."
-Carl Sagan"As you pass from sunlight into darkness and back again every hour and a half, you become startlingly aware how artificial are thousands of boundaries we've created to separate and define. And for the first time in your life you feel in your gut the precious unity of the Earth and all the living things it supports."
-Russell Schweickart "It may be said that the development of science in the field of space flight and related research will be of great significance for the progress of human culture."
-Leonid Sedor"A sense of the unknown has always lured mankind and the greatest of the unknowns of today is outer space. The terrors, the joys and the sense of accomplishment are epitomized in the space program."
-William Shatner "It's a very sobering feeling to be up in space and realize that one's safety factor was determined by the lowest bidder on a government contract."
-Allan B.. Shepherd, Jr. "Why don't you fix your little problem and light this candle?"
-Alan B. Shepard Jr. "We have seen a wonder. There has never been one quite like it. What first steps in human history would one have chosen to witness, if one could travel in time? The Vikings coming ashore wherever they did come ashore -- Newfoundland? -- in North America? Or the first little boat from Columbus's ship scraping the land under her keel? Yet all of that, or any other bit of geographical discovery, we should be seeing with hindsight. On the spot, it must have seemed much more down-to-earth. People getting out of boats must have looked (and felt) very much like people getting out of boats anywhere at anytime.
No, we have had the best of it. We have seen something unique. It is right that is should have looked like something we have never seen before. In science films, perhaps -- but this was real. The figure, moving so laboriously, as though it was learning, minute by minute, to walk, was a man of our own kind. Inside that gear there was a foot, a human foot. Watch. It has come, probing its way down -- near to something solid. One expects to hear (there is no air, one could hear nothing) a sound. At last, it has come down. Onto a surface. Onto the surface of the moon.
Well, we have seen a wonder. We ought to count our blessings."
-Lord C.. P. Snow, 'Look' magazine, 1969 "Man must rise above the Earth -- to the top of the atmosphere and beyond -- for only thus will he fully understand the world in which he lives."
-Socrates "Born of the sun, they traveled a short while toward the sun and left the vivid air signed with their honour."
-Sir Stephen Spender "Science wants to know the mechanism of the universe, religion the meaning. The two cannot be separated."
-Charles Towns "To set foot on the soil of the asteroids, to lift by hand a rock from the Moon, to observe Mars from a distance of several tens of kilometers, to land on its satellite or even on its surface, what can be more fantastic? From the moment of using rocket devices a new great era will begin in astronomy: the epoch of the more intensive study of the firmament."
-Konstantin E. Tsiolkovsky, Father of Russian Astronautics
"Earth is the cradle of mankind, but man cannot live in the cradle forever."
-Koonstantin E. Tsiolkovski
"Mankind will not remain on Earth forever, but in its quest for light and space will at first timidly penetrate beyond the confines of the atmosphere, and later will conquer for itself all the space near the Sun."
-Koonstantin E. Tsiolkovsky "A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step."
-Lao Tsuu "Well it's a marvelous night for a romance, with the stars up above in your eyes. A fantabulous night to make romance 'neath the cover of October skies."
-Van Morrison (from "Moondance") "The greatest gain from space travel consists in the extension of our knowledge. In a hundred years this newly won knowledge will pay huge and unexpected dividends."
-Wernher von Braun "Don't tell me that man doesn't belong out there. Man belongs wherever he wants to go, and he'll do plenty well when he gets there."
-Wernher von Braun "The best computer is a man, and it's the only one that can be mass-produced by unskilled labor."
-Wernher von Braun, when asked if man can be replaced by computer in space flight "It [the rocket] will free man from his remaining chains, the chains of gravity which still tie him to this planet. It will open to him the gates of heaven."
-Wernher von Braun "It was a thunderingly beautiful experience -- voluptuous, sexual, dangerous, and expensive as hell."
-Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. 'Playboy Interview, 197733,' regards the Apollo launches "It is a monster, that rocket. It is not a dead animal; it has a life of its own."
-G�nter Wendt "The modern airplane creates a new geographical dimension. A navigable ocean of air blankets the whole surface of the globe. There are no distant places any longer: the world is small and the world is one."
-Wendell Wilkie A reflection of my feelings about the space program is found in a quotation from Charles A. Lindbergh's "Autobiography of Values." It reads, "Whether outwardly or inwardly, whether in space or time, the farther we penetrate the unknown, the vaster and more marvelous it becomes."
-Robert Wise, Director of "Star Trek" "What is it that makes a man willing to sit up on top of an enormous Roman candle, such as a Redstone, Atlas, Titan or Saturn rocket, and wait for someone to light the fuse?"
-Tom Wolfe, 'The Right Stuff,' 1979 "The International Space Station is an engineering project. It's fundamentally another version of projects that have been done before, and it doesn't go anywhere. Imagine that Ferdinand and Isabella -- instead of sending Columbus on a voyage of exploration -- had decided to build a floating island 100 miles off the coast of Spain. It would be a base for fishermen where they could dry their nets. The economic payback is there potentially with augmented fishing catches. But I don't think they would have set off an age of discovery or even done much for naval architecture."
-Robert Zubrin Ad astra, per aspera.
-"To the stars through hardship,"; motto of the Royal Flying Corps, formed on April 13, 1912. "It is the policy of the United States that activities in space should be devoted to peaceful purposes for the benefit of all mankind."
-U.S. Space Act of 1958 "Here Men From Planet Earth First Set Foot Upon The Moon July 1969 A.D. We Came In Peace For All Mankind."
-Plaque left on the moon "Now approaching lunar sunrise. And for all the people back on Earth, the crew of Apollo eight has a message that we would like to send to you. "In the Beginning god created the Heaven and the Earth. And the Earth was without form and void. And darkness was upon the face of the Deep. . . . And God saw that it was Good. . . . " And from the crew of Apollo 8, we close with good night, good luck, and a Merry Christmas. And God bless all of you, all of you on the good Earth."
-Flight Crew of Apollo 8, Christmas Eve, 1968 "For centuries, people thought the moon was made of green cheese. Then the astronauts found that the moon is really a big hard rock. That's what happens to cheese when you leave it out."
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