20th-century Astronaut Quotes

Neil Armstrong

Buzz Aldrin

Alan Shepard

Jim Lovell

Sally Ride

Eugene Cernan

Gus Grissom

Science has not yet mastered prophecy. We predict too much for the next year and yet far too little for the next ten.

I volunteered for a number of reasons. One of these, quite frankly, was that I thought this was a chance for immortality. Pioneering in space was something I would willingly give my life for.

Scott Carpenter

I felt the power of God as I'd never felt it before.

We'll go back to the moon, this time for a much longer period of time. We'll build lunar outposts. We'll send a crew to Mars. There are no ifs around it. It's going to happen.

Dafydd Williams

Space is so close: It took only eight minutes to get there and twenty to get back.

When you look out the other way toward the stars you realize it's an awful long way to the next watering hole.

Whoopee! Man, that may have been a small one for Neil, but it's a long one for me.

Man must explore. And this is exploration at its greatest.

Suddenly I saw a meteor go by underneath me. A moment later I found myself thinking, That can't be a meteor. Meteors burn up in the atmosphere above us; this was below us. Then, of course, the realization hit me [I was in space].

Jeffrey A. Hoffman

There you are: Mysterious and Unknown Descartes. Highland plains. Apollo 16 is gonna change your image. I'm sure glad they got ol' Brer Rabbit, here, back in the briar patch where he belongs.

John Young (astronaut)

The true courage of space flight is not sitting aboard 6 million pounds of fire and thunder as one rockets away from this planet. True courage comes in enduring... persevering, the preparation and believing in oneself.

Space belongs to all of us. There is science in dance and art in science.

What someone says or writes about me doesn't change the way I am; it only changes my opinion about that person.

Levity is the lubricant of a crisis. We resort to jokes, pranks and good natured kidding to relieve tension, stress and boredom.

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. Our God-given curiosity will force us to go there ourselves because in the final analysis, only man can fully evaluate the moon in terms understandable to other men.

The first day or so we all pointed to our countries. The third or fourth day we were pointing to our continents. By the fifth day, we were aware of only one Earth.

Sultan bin Salman bin Abdul-Aziz Al Saud

To me, money is a commodity that a person must have to function, not a goal in itself.

No teacher has ever been better prepared to teach a lesson.

Christa McAuliffe

When you look at the stars and the galaxy, you feel that you are not just from any particular piece of land but from the solar system.

Eventually we must leave Earth-at least a certain number of our progeny must as our sun approaches the end of its solar life cycle. But just as terrestrial explorers have always led the way for settlers, this will also happen extraterrestrially. Earth is our cradle, not our final destiny.

I know the stars are my home. I learned about them, needed them for survival in terms of navigation. I know where I am when I look up at the sky. I know where I am when I look up at the Moon; it's not just some abstract romantic idea, it's something very real to me. See, I've expanded my home.

The moon is essentially gray, no color. It looks like plaster of Paris, like dirty beach sand with lots of footprints in it.

Every generation has the obligation to free men's minds for a look at new worlds…to look out from a higher plateau than the last generation.

Ellison S. Onizuka

The moon is a different thing to each of us.

I can hit it farther on the moon. But actually, my swing is better here on Earth.