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I'm Convinced That Sending People To Mars Is So Expensive That If You Go Once And Bring The People Back And Then Go Again And Bring The People Back, We're Eventually Going To Run Out Of Money. But What If We Send People The First Time And They Don't Come Back? What If They Stay There?

-Buzz Aldrin

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I'm Convinced That Sending

Buzz Aldrin

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I'm Convinced That Sending People To Mars Is So Expensive That If You Go Once And Bring The People Back And Then Go Again And Bring The People Back, We're Eventually Going To Run Out Of Money. But What If We Send People The First Time And They Don't Come Back? What If They Stay There?

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Human Rights Problems Will Always Exist For Years To Come, But Maybe They'll Lessen Somewhat.

I Don't Watch 'american Idol,' But I Wouldn't Call It 'undignified.'

The Purpose Of Going To Mars Is For Humans To First Begin To Occupy, Permanently, Another Planet In The Solar System. The Astronauts Or Pilgrims, Whatever You Might Call Them, Are Going To Be Very Historically Unique Human Beings.

What Are You Going To Do With Astronauts Who First Reach The Surface Of Mars And Then Turn Around And Rocket Back Home-ward? What Are They Going To Do, Write Their Memoirs? Would They Go Again? Having Them Repeat The Voyage, In My View, Is Dim-witted. Why Don't They Stay There On Mars?

When We Get There, If We Don't Find Any Life On Mars, From That Point On There Will Be Life On Mars Because We'll Bring It There, Whether It's Germs And Leftover Urine Bags, Whatever It Is.

I Shot Down Two Airplanes In Korea, So I Wasn't A Slouch.

Instead Of Planning The Retirement Of The Space Shuttle Program, America Should Be Preparing The Shuttles For Their Next Step In Space: Evolving, Not Shutting Them Down And Laying Off Thousands Of People.

The Pilgrims On The Mayflower Landed At Plymouth Rock. To My Knowledge, They Didn't Wait Around For A Return Trip To Europe. You Settle Some Place With A Purpose. If You Don't Want To Do That, Stay Home. You Avoid An Awful Lot Of Risks By Not Venturing Outward.

As Time Goes By, I'm Increasingly Impressed By How Very Special And Timely It Was That We Got The Degree Of National Commitment Needed To Put People On The Moon. For The First Time, This Nation Was United In Trying To Develop An Interplanetary Capability. We've Been Trying To Repeat That Situation Ever Since.

There Are A Lot Of Reasons For Not Doing Something. And If Humanity Had Come Up With All The Reasons For Not Doing Something We Wouldn't Have Spread Across The Earth The Way We Have. There's A Curiosity, And I Would Submit That That Curiosity Will Put Human Beings On The Surface Of Mars.

My Family Has Always Supported My Activities, Whether It Was Doing Combat In Korea, Flying Progressively And Challenging Fighter-jet Aircraft In Europe, Or Studying For A Doctor's Degree At Mit. They Have Been Always Very Supportive And Understanding Of The Challenges And Risks Involved In My Career. A Family Needs To Work As A Team, Supporting Each Other's Individual Aims And Aspirations.

My Expertise Is The Space Program And What It Should Be In The Future Based On My Experience Of Looking At The Transitions That We've Made Between Pre-sputnik Days And Getting To The Moon.

As A Youngster, I Read Of Buck Rogers And Flash Gordon. As A Student, I Wrote English Reports On Science Fiction. And As A Fighter Pilot, I Observed The Selection Of The Mercury Astronauts. All This Was Fascinating, But I Really Didn't Think I Would Ever Be A Part Of It. It Was Only When My Good Friend Ed White Was Selected As A Gemini Astronaut That I Decided To Join Nasa As Part Of The Apollo Program.

Before Deciding What To Do About National Space Policy, Obama Set Up An Outside Review Panel Of Space Experts, Headed Up By My Friend Norm Augustine, Former Head Of Lockheed Martin And A Former Government Official.

Absolutely The United States Should Lead In Space, For The Survival Of The United States. It's Inspiring For The Next Generation. If We Lose Leadership, Then We'll Be Using Chinese Capability To Inspire Americans.

A Mind Concerned About Danger Is A Clouded Mind. It's Paralyzing.

There Are A Lot Of People That Get Interested In Something, And They Hear About It, And They Read About It, And Then They Watch It Happen, And That's Why I Had Quite An Interest In The Lottery Because You'd Interest A Lot Of People, And Then Just A Few Would Win A Chance To Do Something.

Did The Pilgrims On The Mayflower Sit Around Plymouth Rock Waiting For A Return Trip? They Came Here To Settle. And That's What We Should Be Doing On Mars. When You Go To Mars, You Need To Have Made The Decision That You're There Permanently. The More People We Have There, The More It Can Become A Sustaining Environment. Except For Very Rare Exceptions, The People Who Go To Mars Shouldn't Be Coming Back. Once You Get On The Surface, You're There.

We Should Go Boldly Where Man Has Not Gone Before. Fly By The Comets, Visit Asteroids, Visit The Moon Of Mars. There's A Monolith There. A Very Unusual Structure On This Potato Shaped Object That Goes Around Mars Once In Seven Hours. When People Find Out About That They're Going To Say 'who Put That There? Who Put That There?' The Universe Put It There. If You Choose, God Put It There.

I Don't Think We're Going To Build A 50-person Spacecraft Or A 100-person Spacecraft.

The Energy Varies With The Square Of The Velocity, So If You Need Five Times The Velocity, That's 25 Times The Energy.

We Really Didn't Devote A Lot Of Time To Investigating The Scariest Aspects Of Our Flight. It Was More Challenging And Productive To Concentrate On The Remedies, And Leave Things That Couldn't Be Solved To Happen Without Thinking About Them. There Is A Morbid Human Curiosity Associated With Tragic Death-producing Events. Though Naturally, This Needs To Be Kept In Perspective.

The Best Way To Study Mars Is With Two Hands, Eyes And Ears Of A Geologist, First At A Moon Orbiting Mars... And Then On The Surface.

You Are Not Going To Change The Minds Of People Who Are Looking For Attention.

A Family Needs To Work As A Team, Supporting Each Other's Individual Aims And Aspirations.

Everyone Who's Been In Space Would, I'm Sure, Welcome The Opportunity For A Return To The Exhilarating Experiences There. For Me, A Flight In A Shuttle, Though Most Satisfying, Would Be Anticlimactic After My Flight To The Moon. Plus, If I Pursued A Flight Myself, People Would Think That Was The Reason I Am Trying To Generate Interest In Public Spaceflight. And That's Not The Purpose - I Want To Generate Interest In Long-range Space Exploration.

Mars Is There, Waiting To Be Reached.

I Feel We Need To Remind The World About The Apollo Missions And That We Can Still Do Impossible Things.

Impossible Things

Trips To Mars, The Moon, Even Orbit, Will Require That We Provide Astrotourists With As Many Comforts From Home As Possible, Including Paying Each Other.

There's A Historical Milestone In The Fact That Our Apollo 11 Landing On The Moon Took Place A Mere 66 Years After The Wright Brothers' First Flight.

I Still Say, 'shoot For The Moon; You Might Get There.'

Shoot For The Moon

I Grew Up In New Jersey And Never Went Up The Statue Of Liberty.

I Realize That My Life Is Not The Common Ordinary Person.

We're Number One On The Runway.

They Didn’t Tell Me I Was Going Into Space Until After They Locked The Shuttle Doors And Started Counting Down.

I Think The American Dream Used To Be Achieving One's Goals In Your Field Of Choice-and From That All Other Things Would Follow. Now, I Think The Dream Has Morphed Into The Pursuit Of Money: Accumulate Enough Of It, And The Rest Will Follow. We've Become More Materialistic. For Balance, I Think We Need To Get Back To Idealism And Patriotism, But Also Be Realistic With Our Monetary Goals.

A Hybrid Human-robot Mission To Investigate An Asteroid Affords A Realistic Opportunity To Demonstrate New Technological Capabilities For Future Deep-space Travel And To Test Spacecraft For Long-duration Spaceflight.

Not Everyone Can Be An Astronaut And Go Into Space, Some People With Sufficient Resources Can Purchase And Fly Sub-orbitally Thanks To Various Companies And For More Money (considerably) Fly Into Orbit.

The Way I See It, What Is Going To Come Out Of The Moon Activities Is A Respect For U.s. Leadership.

We Feel That This Stands As A Symbol Of The Insatiable Curiosity Of All Mankind To Explore The Unknown.

We Need The Next Generation To Be Motivated And To Push Technological Boundaries, To Seek Out New Innovations.

Unfortunately, Pioneers Will Always Pave The Way With Sacrifices.

The Leader Of An Earth Organization Who Makes A Commitment To History - Of Humans Living On Earth, To Begin Permanent Settlement/occupation Of Not The Moon, But Of Another Planet - This Leader Will Have A Legacy For History That Will Supersede Columbus, Genghis Khan Or Almost Any Recognized Leader.

I Want To Keep On The Move, Keep Stimulated And Challenged.

Six Out Of Seven Times We Landed Successfully [on The Moon]. I Wanted To Be A Part Of That And I Was A Part Of That, So My Personal Feeling Is Of Great Gratefulness For Having Somehow Been In A Position To Have Been Given The Opportunity To Be On That First Landing. That's A Marvelous Experience For A Little Kid That Grew Up In New Jersey. So I'm Very Thankful, And I Asked The Whole World To Give Thanks Once We Successfully Landed.

Pascal Lee Is A True Pioneer Of Mars Exploration.

The G-forces Increased And I Wasn't Able To Continue To Hold The Camera Against The Window, So I Had To Lay It Back Against My Chest, But Still Continued To Photograph The Re-entry Until There Was No More Unusual Visual Effects Of The Energy In The Atmosphere. And It Was Very Comforting To Understand That The People In Houston, The Controllers, Had Very High Confidence That We Were On The Right Path.

Walking Around On The Moon Was Significantly Easier Than We'd Thought It Would Be. There Weren't Any Balance Problems, So You Weren't Tumbling Over.

Nobody Ever Asks Who Was The Seventh Person On The Moon. The Only Thing They Know Is Who's Number One And Who's Number Two. Does Anybody Know Who The Last Man Was?

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I Inherited Depression From My Mother's Side Of The Family. Her Father Committed Suicide. She Committed Suicide The Year Before I Went To The Moon.

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We'll Get To The Details Of What's Around Here, But It Looks Like A Collection Of Just About Every Variety Of Shape - Angularity, Granularity, About Every Variety Of Rock.... The Colors - Well.... There Doesn't Appear To Be Too Much Of A General Color At All; However, It Looks As Though Some Of The Rocks And Boulders Are Going To Have Some Interesting Colors To Them. Over.

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Weve Got To Go [back To The Moon]. But We Dont Want To Stay Too Long. ... The Ultimate Goal Is Mars.

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By Venturing Into Space, We Improve Life For Everyone Here On Earth - Scientific Advances And Innovations That Come From This Kind Of Research Create Products We Use In Our Daily Lives.

During The Divorce Process, I Lived Alone And Tended To Get Extremely Down On Myself.

Standing On The Moon Looking Back At Earth - This Lovely Place You Just Came From - You See All The Colours, And You Know What They Represent. Having Left The Water Planet, With All That Water Brings To Earth In Terms Of Colour And Abudance Life, The Absence Of Water And Atmosphere On The Desolate Surface Of The Moon Gives Rise To A Stark Contrast.

Heavy Lifting Doesn't Need To Be Heavy Spending If We Do The Job Right.

Somebody Would Think I Was Trying To Get Favored Treatment Because My Ancestors Had The Name Moon. And That's A Joke.

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Science Fiction

The Feeling Of Reduced Gravity And The Limitations Of The Space Suit Resulted In A Slow-motion Movement. Perhaps Not Too Far From A Trampoline, But Without The Springiness And Instability.

I Understand That Detroit Was A Pretty Rough Place To Grow Up In The '70s And '80s.

If We Go Back To The Moon, We're Guaranteed Second, Maybe Third Place Because While We Are Spending All That Money, Russia Has Its Eye On Mars. Landing People On The Moon Will Be Terribly Consuming Of Resources We Don't Have. It Sounds Great - 'let's Go Back. This Time We're Going To Stay.' I Don't Know Why You Would Want To Stay On The Moon.

Drive Over To The Nearest Airport, And Enroll In Flight Classes. You Will Experience The Joy Of Freedom In The Air Above, As You Study The Mechanics Of How This Is Made Possible By Understanding The Construction, The Laws Of Motion, The Air That Can Provide Lift When It Is Moved By Propulsion Through The Air, And Stay Above The Gravity Pulling The Airplane Back Down To Earth.

This Has Been Far More Than Three Men On A Mission To The Moon; More Still Than The Efforts Of A Government And Industry Team; More, Even, Than The Efforts Of One Nation. We Feel This Stands As A Symbol Of The Insatiable Curiosity Of All Mankind To Explore The Unknown.

I Failed Music When I Was A Teenager.

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Guarantees That

America's Can-do Spirit Cast A Warm Glow Across Nations And Cultures, Generating More Goodwill And Support For Our Country's Ideals And Causes Than Had Otherwise Been Possible.

It's Real Easy To Manufacture What You Think The People Want To Hear. But That's Not Very Honest.

There's No Doubt That There Will Be Many Trials And Tribulations Along The Way In Taming Space For The Benefit Of All, Unmasking Its Truths And Using The Boundless Resources Available To Us. Taking A Chance Allows Us To Seek New Horizons -- And We All Benefit From Being Horizon Hunters.

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I Believe That Space Travel Will One Day Become As Common As Airline Travel Is Today. I'm Convinced, However, That The True Future Of Space Travel Does Not Lie With Government Agencies -- Nasa Is Still Obsessed With The Idea That The Primary Purpose Of The Space Program Is Science -- But Real Progress Will Come From Private Companies Competing To Provide The Ultimate Adventure Ride, And Nasa Will Receive The Trickle-down Benefits.

I'm Convinced That Sending People To Mars Is So Expensive That If You Go Once And Bring The People Back And Then Go Again And Bring The People Back, We're Eventually Going To Run Out Of Money. But What If We Send People The First Time And They Don't Come Back? What If They Stay There?

When We Can Demonstrate That We Can Take Off Horizontally And Put Something Into Orbit, Then We Can Begin To Talk About Increasing The Amount Of Payload. But To Say, 'i'm Going To Do That And Put People Into Orbit' Is A Real Leap.

Mars Is Far More Attractive As An Outpost Colony For Earthlings Than The Moon Is.

I Do Celebrity Ski Races All Over The World.

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'anthony And The Magic Picture Frame' Tells It Like It Really Was In America's Early Space Program - The Adventure, The Risks, And The Rewards.

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The Decision To Go To The Moon Is Now Appreciated And Associated With President Kennedy's Speech, But Somebody Else Had Told Him It Was A Good Idea. It Turned Out To Be A Good Commitment, But It Was A Unique Situation.

Retain The Vision For Space Exploration. If We Turn Our Backs On The Vision Again, We're Going To Have To Live In A Secondary Position In Human Space Flight For The Rest Of The Century.

I Think The People Who Experienced The Apollo Missions Came Away From That Experience Wondering To Themselves, 'when Can We Get A Chance To Experience Spaceflight?' I've Heard That Many, Many Times: That People Got Into A New Career Field Hoping That They Would Be Able To Experience Spaceflight.

Mars Has Been Flown By, Orbited, Smacked Into, Radar Examined, And Rocketed Onto, As Well As Bounced Upon, Rolled Over, Shoveled, Drilled Into, Baked And Even Blasted. Still To Come: Mars Being Stepped On.

All The Chinese Have To Do Is Fly Around The Moon And Back, And They'll Appear To Have Won The Return To The Moon With Humans. They Could Put One Person On The Surface Of The Moon For One Day And He'd Be A National Hero.

I Think Humans Will Reach Mars, And I Would Like To See It Happen In My Lifetime.

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History Gets Reinterpreted As Time Goes On. Many Times, The Participants Are Lost In The Retelling Of The Story.

I Think We Need To Move To The Moons Of Mars And Learn How To Control Robots That Are On The Surface. It's Not The Impatient Way Of Getting There, But Mars Has Been There A Long Time.

It's Time To Open The Space Frontier To Citizen Explorers.

To Send Humans Back To The Moon Would Not Be Advancing. It Would Be More Than 50 Years After The First Moon Landing When We Got There, And We'd Probably Be Welcomed By The Chinese. But We Should Return To The Moon Without Astronauts And Build, With Robots, An International Lunar Base, So That We Know How To Build A Base On Mars Robotically.

I Am Excited To Think That The Development Of Commercial Capabilities To Send Humans Into Low Earth Orbit Will Likely Result In So Many More Earthlings Being Able To Experience The Transformative Power Of Space Flight.

As Someone Who Flew Two Space Capsules And Twice Landed In The Ocean, I Can Attest From Personal Experience How Much Logistics Work Is Needed To Get You Home.

The Life Expectancy Of People Going To Mars May Be Decreased By The Higher Level Of Radiation That They Receive.

For The Future, Primarily, We Must Educate People In Science, Engineering, Technology And Math.

It's Not Easy To Get Human Beings Into Orbit. So Far Only Three Nations Have Been Able To Do That, With All The Resources That They Put Together. And I'm Just A Little Skeptical That That's Going To Be Done By The Private Sector Without Making Use Of What Has Been Done By The Government.

Fighter Pilots Have Ice In Their Veins. They Don't Have Emotions. They Think, Anticipate. They Know That Fear And Other Concerns Cloud Your Mind From What's Going On And What You Should Be Involved In.

Long-term, I See Robotics Prevailing On The Moon. . . . The Most Important Decision We'll Have To Make About Space Travel Is Whether To Commit To A Permanent Human Presence On Mars. Without It, We'll Never Be A True Space-faring People.

From The Distance Of The Moon, Earth Was Four Times The Size Of A Full Moon Seen From Earth. It Was A Brilliant Jewel In The Black Velvet Sky.

I Have No Intention Of Selling Any More Of The Historical Apollo 11 Items In My Possession For The Remainder Of My Life. I Intend To Pass A Portion Of These Items On To My Children And To Loan The Most Important Items For Permanent Display In Suitable Museums Around The Country.

The Urge To Explore Has Propelled Evolution Since The First Water Creatures Reconnoitered The Land. Like All Living Systems, Cultures Cannot Remain Static; They Evolve Or Decline. They Explore Or Expire. . . . Beyond All Rationales, Space Flight Is A Spiritual Quest In The Broadest Sense, One Promising A Revitalization Of Humanity And A Rebirth Of Hope No Less Profound Than The Great Opening Out Of Mind And Spirit At The Dawn Of Our Modern Age.

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Whenever I Gaze Up At The Moon, I Feel Like I'm On A Time Machine. I Am Back To That Precious Pinpoint Of Time, Standing On The Foreboding - Yet Beautiful - Sea Of Tranquility. I Could See Our Shining Blue Planet Earth Poised In The Darkness Of Space.

American Greatness Was Elevated Significantly After Sputnik.

American Greatness

It's Been One Of The Greatest Challenges That Ever Came Along In My Life; It Was One Of The More Difficult Things To Do.

Exploring Mars Is A Far Different Venture From Apollo Expeditions To The Moon; It Necessitates Leaving Our Home Planet On Lengthy Missions With A Constrained Return Capability.

To Me, Money Is A Commodity That A Person Must Have To Function, Not A Goal In Itself.

To Move Forward, What's Required Is A Unified Space Agenda Based On Exploration, Science, Development, Commerce, And Security.

There's A Tremendously Satisfying Freedom Associated With Weightlessness. It's Challenging In The Absence Of Traction Or Leverage, And It Requires Thoughtful Readjustment. I Found The Experience Of Weightlessness To Be One Of The Most Fun And Enjoyable, Challenging And Rewarding, Experiences Of Spaceflight. Returning To Earth Brings With It A Great Sense Of Heaviness, And A Need For Careful Movement. In Some Ways It's Not Too Different From Returning From A Rocking Ocean Ship.

Globalisation Means Many Other Countries Are Asserting Themselves And Trying To Take Over Leadership. Please Don't Ask Americans To Let Others Assume The Leadership Of Human Exploration. We Can Do Wonderful Science On The Moon, And Wonderful Commercial Things. Then We Can Pack Up And Move On To Mars.

Sending A Couple Of Guys To The Moon And Bringing Them Back Safely? That's A Stunt! That's Not Historic.

The First Human Beings To Land On Mars Should Not Come Back To Earth. They Should Be The Beginning Of A Build-up Of A Colony/settlement, I Call It A 'permanence'.

I Was Motivated To Improve The U.s. Strategy Of Going Back To The Moon In 1985. That's A Long Time Ago. Going Back To The Moon Would Be A Great Achievement For Tourism Adventure Flights.

The Way I See It, Commercial Interests Should Manage A Lunar Base While Nasa Gets On With The Really Important Task Of Flying To Mars.

Training Was Very Extensive, And We Dealt With Many Recoveries From Emergencies, And Fortunately, Participating And Observing And Existing Through The Reality Of Space Was A Once-in-a-lifetime Experience And It Was Not Marred By Unexpected Hazards Or Catastrophes.

Most People Never Believed In The Real Possibility Of Going To The Moon, And Neither Did I Until I Was In My Twenties.

When I Am Getting Ready To Cross A Street, I Look Both Ways Before Crossing. My Bones, My Muscles, Are Not What They Used To Be, So I Am Careful When I Go Up And Down Stairs, Because I've Heard Stories Of Older People Falling And Having Very Disabling Injuries. I Have Enough Things That Begin To Go A Little Bit Wrong As I Get A Little Bit Older.

America Can Take Man To The Moon, And America Can Take Men To Mars - And Beyond.

There Are Always Door Openings. And Gradually, It Accumulates. The Opportunities Open Up In Front Of You.

It Was Designed To Have An Impact On The Stalemate Over Mutually Assured Destruction With The Soviet Union. Us Reaching The Moon Convinced Gorbachev And Other Leaders That The Soviet Union Couldn't Compete With The U.s., So They Revised Their Agenda. But People Have Short Memories.

I Think It's Inevitable That There Will Be Earthlings Establishing A Presence On Mars. And I Would Say That It Would Certainly Take Place By 2050 Or Shortly Thereafter.

For Every Winner, There's A Loser. And That Person Didn't Really Need To Lose. They Just Didn't Understand The Game Plan.

I Was Not The Commander, I Was A Junior Person, So Once Both Were Outside, I Followed My Leader, Because We (nasa) Had Not Put Together Detailed Jobs Of People Outside. I Believe It Could Have Been Improved. But It Was Very Successful For What It Was.

I Would Rather People Understand That There Is A Very, Very Fortunate American Who Was Given The Opportunity, And Was In The Right Place At The Right Time To Have The Moment Of A Lifetime. My Mother Was Born - Her Name Was Marianne Moon. And She Was Born In 1903, The Year That The Wright Brothers First Flew.

I Want People To Go Into Space, To Orbit Around The World A Few Times, Even To Stay There For 24 Hours And Then Come Back To Where They Took Off. And I Also Want People With A Low Income To Be Able To Do That, Not Only Rich People.

When The Time Comes To Start Building Deep Space Transports And Refueling Rocket Tankers, It Will Be The Commercial Industry That Steps Up, Not Another Government-owned, Government-managed Enterprise.

The Surface Of The Moon Is Like Nothing Here On Earth! It's Totally Lacking Any Evidence Of Life. It Has Lots Of Fine, Talcum-powderlike Dust Mixed With A Complete Variety Of Pebbles, Rocks, And Boulders. Many Pebbles, Fewer Rocks, And Even Fewer Boulders Naturally Make Up Its Surface. The Dust Is A Very Fine, Overall Dark Gray. And With No Air Molecules To Separate The Dust, It Clings Together Like Cement.

Program Alarm, It's A 1202.

The Universe Is The Way It Is. It's Not Going To Be Changed By Supplications.

At 10,000 Feet, The 3 Parachutes Would Come Out, A Little Lower The Pressure Of The Atmosphere Outside Was Greater Than Inside, And We Could Smell The Salt Air And It Was Very Encouraging To Return To Earth.

Exploration Is Wired Into Our Brains. If We Can See The Horizon, We Want To Know What's Beyond.

Once You've Been First, It Cannot Be Done Again. Not By You, Not By Anyone Else.

Do We Really Need These Big, Gigantic, Heavy Rockets? What If We Launch A Rocket That's Empty, And Its Sole Purpose Is To Act As A Source Of Fuel On The Moon? Who Should Build That? Well, I Think The U.s. Should Build That.

As We Begin To Have Landings On The Moon, We Can Alternate Those With Vertical Launch Of Similar Crew Modules On Similar Launch Vehicles For Vertical-launch Tourism In Space, If You Want To Call It That Adventure Travel.

Space Architectures Capable Of Supporting A Permanent Human Presence On Mars Are Extraordinarily Complex, With Many Different Interdependent Systems.

I Grew Up In A Country That I Thought Was Special. And It Was.

I Have No Doubt That Humans Will Go To Mars. And I Feel That America Has Led So Many Things In Space - We Have Invested So Much, And We Have A Lot To Gain - That America Could And Should Be The Nation That Should Lead The Settlement Of Mars.

As We Reflect Back Upon The Tragic Loss Of Challenger And Her Brave Crew Of Heroes Who Were Aboard That Fateful Day, I Am Reminded That They Truly Represented The Best Of Us, As They Climbed Aloft On A Plume Of Propellant Gasses, Reaching For The Stars, To Inspire Us Who Were Earthbound.

If You Want Poets In Space, You'll Have To Wait.

I Was The First Navy, Marine Or Air Force Person Who Had Been An Astronaut To Return Back To The Air Force. I Had Certain Expectations About What Would Be A Reasonable And Desirable Position To Be Assigned To After My Years Of Service.

We Need To Have People Up There Who Can Communicate What It Feels Like, Not Just Pilots And Engineers.

My Own American Dream Was To Serve My Country As Best I Could And Make A Difference In America - And In The World.

Don't Waste Your Time On Beaming People Up Or Down. Instead, Consider Gravity Waves As Advanced Physics Of The Universe That Could Be Used To Travel Interstellar Distances.

Any Observations From The Moon Or A Sense Of Realising This Or That About The Greater Meaning Of Things Wasn't As Influential For Me As The Experience Of Coming Back And Dealing With Being A Person Who's Been To The Moon.

Unless We Are Able To Commit To A Permanent Growing Settlement [on Mars], Then I Don't Think Just Going There With Humans And Coming Back Is Worth Doing. The Expense Of Planning To Come Back Is Like The People Who Left Europe To Come To America And Then To Turn Around And Go Back To Europe, It Really Doesn't Make Any Sense At All.

When I Was A Little Kid, We Only Knew About Our Nine Planets. Since Then, We've Downgraded Pluto But Have Discovered That Other Solar Systems And Stars Are Common. So Life Is Probably Quite Prevalent.

Space Tourism Is A Logical Outgrowth Of The Adventure Tourist Market.

I Want To Reach A New Generation. That's Why I Am Twittering Now. I Have A Blackberry, An Iphone And A Mac.

I Don't Go Through Life Verbalizing What I Feel.

I'm Sure The Most Favorite Airplane In My Career Would Still Be The Sabre F86 Cleft Wing , Which Allowed Me To Be Credited With 2 Russian-built Mig-15 Destroyed During The Korean War. Where I Was In 1953.

Climate Has Been Changing For Billions Of Years.

I Think There Would Be No Shortage Of Applicants To The Government Astronaut Corps To Be Settlers On The Planet Mars. And I Think This Would Be Very Inspiring.

Going Back To The Moon Is Not Visionary In Restoring Space Leadership For America. Like Its Apollo Predecessor, It Will Prove To Be A Dead End Littered With Broken Spacecraft, Broken Dreams And Broken Policies.

You Need Propellants To Accelerate Toward Mars, Then To Decelerate At Mars, Again To Re-accelerate From Mars To Earth, And Finally To Decelerate Back At Earth. Accordingly, The Mass Of These Required Propellants, In Short, Drives Our Need For Innovative Launch Vehicles.

Because Of His Military Service, Dad Was Buried In Arlington National Cemetery.

Armstrong Described The Lunar Surface As 'beautiful.' I Thought To Myself, 'it's Not Really Beautiful. It's Magnificent That We're Here, But What A Desolate Place We Are Visiting.'

Kids, Help Your Parents If They Don't Know How To Use A Smartphone.

Over The Years, I Think I've Matured In My Spiritual Evolution And Development To Understand A Bit More Than The Narrow Religious Thinking - To Move Beyond That Through A Sort Of Perfection Of The Grandiose Nature Of The Universe, And How Perfect It Is It In Its Sense And How Satisfied We Should All Be In Our Place In That.

There Were About Six Years When There Was Not One American Who Went Into Space. We Shouldn't Do That Again.

We Need To Begin Thinking About Building Permanence On The Red Planet, Not Just Have Voyagers Do Some Experiments, Plant A Flag And Claim Success. Having Them Go There, Repeat This, In My View, Is Dim-witted. Why Not Stay There?

Save The Taxpayer's Money By Canceling The Ares 1 And V.

My Sunday Mornings Are Spent In A Recovery Meeting In Pacific Palisades.

I Was Lucky Enough To Have Been Born On This Planet Earth, In This Admirable Country Of The United States Of America.

Many Say Exploration Is Part Of Our Destiny, But It's Actually Our Duty To Future Generations And Their Quest To Ensure The Survival Of The Human Species.

Neil Armstrong Was The First Man To Walk On The Moon. I Am The First Man To Piss His Pants On The Moon.

Knowledge Of The Past And An Optimistic View Of The Present Give You Great Opportunities.

There Is Very Little Doubt, In My Mind, That What The Next Monumental Achievement Of Humanity Will Be The First Landing By An Earthling, A Human Being, On The Planet Mars.

The Beauty Of Hawaii Probably Surpasses Other Places. I Like The Big Island And The Two Mountains, Mauna Loa And Mauna Kea, Where You Can Look Out At The Stars.

There's A Need For Accepting Responsibility - For A Person's Life And Making Choices That Are Not Just Ones For Immediate Short-term Comfort. You Need To Make An Investment, And The Investment Is In Health And Education.

I've Led A Life Of Such Structured Discipline And Always Had A Goal In Mind Of Knowing What I Was Doing, From West Point To The Air Force Combat, Mit, Looking For New Things To Study And Get Involved In. And Then I Got Into The Space Program, And How Disciplined Can You Get?

Apollo 11 Will Probably Go Down In History As One Of The Major Responses Of Two Nations Facing Each Other With Threatening Technologies - Sometimes Called Mutually Assured Destruction. It Was Also The America's Response To The Apparent Superiority Of The Russians In Putting Objects Into Space Before Usa Could.

It Was Challenging To Understand What Was Necessary To Successfully Carry Out All The Training Simulations That We, As Crewmen, Would Experience, And Make A Very Successful Use Of That Training And Education.

Mars, We Know, Was Once Wet And Warm. Was It Home To Life? And What Can Living And Learning To Work On Its Rust-colored Surface Teach Us About The Future Of Our Own Planet, Earth? Answering Those Mysteries May Hold The Key To Our Future.

I Think The Public Needs To Be Reminded Just How Much Inspiration And Intention Was Given Throughout The World To Be Bold, To Send Human Beings To The Moon In The '60s And The '70s. It's Important Now To Bring Together The Nations That Weren't Able To Do It Then And Help Them Do It. We Need To Move Forward.

I Am Definitely Not Rich.

Is The Destiny Of The Human Species To Sit Back And Play With Our Mouse And Computer And Imagine, Fantasize?

I Know: If You're Looking Down At Earth, You're Looking Through An Atmosphere That Has A Bit Of Haze In Many Places And Not Just Occasional Clouds.

When President Kennedy Took Office, I Was In The Midst Of My Education.

President Kennedy

What Comes After The Moon? I Think You Can Guess: Mars.

When We Set Out To Land People On The Surface Of Mars, I Think We Should As A Nation, As A World, Commit Ourselves To Supporting A Growing Settlement And Colonization There. To Visit A Few Times And Then Withdraw Would Be An Unforgivable Waste Of Resources.

I Came To Dedicate My Life To Opening Space To The Average Person And Crafting Designs For New Spaceships That Could Take Us Far From Home. But Since Apollo Ended, Such Travels Were Only In Our Collective Memory.

I Felt Pretty Confident In Relieving Myself, Since I Had The Urge.

Does It Make Sense For The U.s. To Expend Hundreds Of Billions Of Dollars To Mount A New Apollo-style Program To Return To The Moon? Or Have We Blazed That Trail? Shouldn't We Help Other Nations Achieve This Goal With Their Own Resources But With Our Help?

Mars Has A Bit Of Air Pressure; Maybe We Can Build Up That Atmosphere To Be A Bit More Accommodating To Humans.

I've Been To The Titanic In A Yellow Submarine And The North Pole In A Russian Nuclear Ice Breaker.

No Dream Is Too High For Those With Their Eyes In The Sky!

There's No Doubt Who Was A Leader In Space After The Apollo Program. Nobody Came Close To Us. And Our Education System, In Science, Technology, Engineering And Math, Was At The Top Of The World. It's No Longer There. We're Descending Rather Rapidly.

I Wrote 'reaching For The Moon' Because I Wanted To Tell Kids That All Of Us Have A Moon, A Dream, That We Can Strive For. Even If You Don't Attain It, You Can At Least Reach For It.

We Could Have Human Intelligence In Orbit Around Mars, Building Things There.

Building Things

The Big Companies Are The Private Industry. But They're Faced With A Short-term Need To Show A Profit In Short-term.

The Moon I See Now Is The Same Moon I Saw Before. Except That Before, When I Looked At It, It Was In Anticipation Of What It Would Be Like When I Got There. That's Behind Me Now.

I Think I Need To Continue To Think And Plan And Marry All Of The Different Things That We Could Do That Make Transportation In Space From The Earth To The Space Station, From The Earth To The Moon To Space Stations Around The Moon To Visiting An Asteroid.

My Favourite Thing To Do On This Planet Is To Scuba Dive.

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Samuel R. Delany

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