SPACE TRAVEL QUOTES II
quotations about space travel and exploration
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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.
THOMAS G. BERGIN
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"Space Prober"
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The planet was our mother and our burial ground. No wonder the human spirit wished to leave. Leave this prolific belly. Leave also this great tomb.
SAUL BELLOW
Mr. Sammler's Planet
We shape life, we travel space
But we don't know the words to the songs of the ocean
STAR ONE
"Songs of the Ocean"
Earth is the best planet in our solar system. We go to space to save Earth.
JEFF BEZOS
Twitter, April 22, 2018
Will outer space be preserved for peaceful use and developed for the benefit of all mankind? Or will it become another focus for the arms race--and thus an area of dangerous and sterile competition? The choice is urgent. And it is ours to make. The nations of the world have recently united in declaring the continent of Antarctica "off limits" to military preparations. We could extend this principle to an even more important sphere. National vested interests have not yet been developed in space or in celestial bodies. Barriers to agreement are now lower than they will ever be again.
DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER
speech to the General Assembly of the United Nations in New York City, September 22, 1960
Many years ago the great British explorer George Mallory, who was to die on Mount Everest, was asked why did he want to climb it. He said "Because it is there." Well, space is there, and we're going to climb it, and the moon and the planets are there, and new hopes for knowledge and peace are there.
JOHN F. KENNEDY
speech at Rice University, September 12, 1962
There are so many problems to solve on this planet first before we begin to trash other worlds.
E. A. BUCCHIANERI
Brushstrokes of a Gadfly
I think commercial space travel is critical. We're not really going to do much in space at all until the price to low-Earth orbit gets driven down. Right now it's just so damn expensive, there's no economic incentive to go into space. So any missions are just governments spending money they're not going to recoup. But if you can drive down the price, then there will be a commercial space enterprise and economics will see to it from there. If you can imagine a scenario where, for $50,000 you can go into space and spend a week on a space hotel, like a space station. And the whole process were as safe for you as international [air] travel is today. I think people would be lining up to do that. There would be infinite demand.
ANDY WEIR
"The Martian author Andy Weir: Private space travel is critical", engadget, September 30, 2015
Lewis loved fishing in space. Yes, I know there are no fish in space, but catching fish is not at all the main point of fishing. Ninety percent of the activity is sitting with rod and reel just simply mulling things over. Lewis spent hours in a space suit sitting on top of the Ray with his line dangling, contemplating the sheer beauty of the Universe.
ERIC IDLE
The Road to Mars: A Post-Modem Novel
Our flight must be not only to the stars but into the nature of our own beings. Because it is not merely where we go, to Alpha Centauri or Betelgeuse, but what we are as we make our pilgrimage there. Our natures will be going there, too.
PHILIP K. DICK
"The Android and the Human"
Ground Control to Major Tom
Take your protein pills and put your helmet on
Ground Control to Major Tom (ten, nine, eight, seven, six)
Commencing countdown, engines on (five, four, three)
Check ignition and may God's love be with you (two, one, liftoff)
DAVID BOWIE
"Space Oddity"
The spice is vital to space travel.
Travel without moving.
ASTRAL PROJECTION
"Dancing Galaxy"
Space travel is like hanging upside down for a long time!
BRINDA K. RANA
"Astronaut twins study shows space travel causes premature aging", La Jolla Light, August 1, 2017
NASA knows that space travel, specifically spending time in zero gravity, is hard. But since the plan is to send men and women up to Mars, which is a six-month flight one way, it is trying hard to develop ways to counteract the debilitating aspects of space travel so the astronauts can function when they get to the red planet. Luckily, the gravity on Mars is less than it is on Earth, so they should be able to stand up and carry out their activities.
WILL BOWEN
"Astronaut twins study shows space travel causes premature aging", La Jolla Light, August 1, 2017
To venture into space we must be strong-willed and determined. We must be fully committed to its exploration and discovery; space permits no half measures and is unforgiving of mistakes.
HENRY JOY MCCRACKEN
LM, November 1997
So why spend money on space, which is and always had been a non-economic endeavor? In part, because we are still coasting on the achievements of the giants who came before us. We have let them down, let ourselves down, and become a country where dreams and aspirations are shrinking. We create magical devices--manufactured elsewhere--that sit in our palms and can tell us there is good pizza around the corner, but we can't get our hands around a version of our future that unpacks the mysteries of the great beyond. America is no long that kind of place, that kind of country, that kind of ideal.
DAVID CARR
"American Greatness 2.0: A week in which private space efforts explode etched the sad reality that the U.S. no longer reaches for the stars", Medium, November 1, 2014
Space tourism will bloom very soon.... Regular tourist flights, orbital hotels--then the real payoff begins. I foresee an interplanetary cruise ship, a lunar cycler. Assembled in Earth orbit, this liner is given a powerful push--sending it on its way to the moon. The lunar cycler will undergo a cosmic dance: loop around the moon, return to Earth, slingshot around Earth, and return to the moon again. The round-trip will take just over a week. And every time the lunar cycler swings by Earth, it'll be met by a supply ferry, maybe even restocked with champagne, and boarded by a fresh group of travelers.
BUZZ ALDRIN
Mission to Mars: My Vision for Space Exploration
Imagine we could accelerate continuously at 1 g -- what we're comfortable with on good old terra firma -- to the midpoint of our voyage, and decelerate continuously at 1 g until we arrive at our destination. It would take a day to get to Mars, a week and a half to Pluto, a year to the Oort Cloud, and a few years to the nearest stars.
CARL SAGAN
Pale Blue Dot
Nobody is going to emigrate from this planet, not ever. On a local scale--the solar system--it makes little sense to continue exploration by sending live astronauts to the moon, and much less to Mars and beyond to where simple alien life forms might reasonably be sought--on Europa, the ice-sheathed moon of Jupiter, and on fiery Enceladus, a moon of Saturn. It will be far cheaper, and entail no risk to human life, to explore space with robots. The technology is already well along, in rocket propulsion, robotics, remote analysis, and information transmissions, to send robots that can do more than any human visitor, including decisions made on the spot, and to transmit images and data of the highest quality back to Earth. Granted that our spirit soars at the thought of a human being--one of us--walking on a celestial body like explorers on unmapped continents in times long past. Yet the real thrill will be in learning in detail what is out there, and seeing ourselves what it looks like, in crisp detail, at our virtual feet two meters away, picking up soil and possibly organisms with our virtual hands and analyzing them.... It is an especially dangerous delusion if we see emigration into space as a solution to be taken when we have used up this planet.... Earth, by the twenty-second century, can be turned, if we so wish, into a permanent paradise for human beings.
EDWARD O. WILSON
The Social Conquest of Earth
The second best thing about space travel is that the distances involved make war very difficult, usually impractical, and almost always unnecessary. This is probably a loss for most people, since war is our race's most popular diversion, one which gives purpose and color to dull and stupid lives. But it is a great boon to the intelligent man who fights only when he must--never for sport.
ROBERT A. HEINLEIN
Time Enough For Love