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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.

-Buzz Aldrin

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The Urge To Explore

Buzz Aldrin

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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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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.

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

Timing Has Always Been A Key Element In My Life. I Have Been Blessed To Have Been In The Right Place At The Right Time.

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

Computers Allow Us To Squeeze The Most Out Of Everything, Whether It's Google Looking Up Things, So I Guess That Tends To Make Us A Little Lazy About Reading Books And Doing Things The Hard Way To Understand How Those Things Work.

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

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's No Guarantee That The United States Will Be Around 200 Years From Now.

Guarantees That

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

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.

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.

The Final Frontier May Be Human Relationships, One Person To Another.

I'm In Favor Of Changing The Destination Of Humans. There Are A Lot Of Manned Missions That Can Be Done, But Not In The Direction Of The Moon.

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.

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.'

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 Failed Music When I Was A Teenager.

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.

Everyone Who's Been In Space Would, I'm Sure, Welcome The Opportunity For A Return To The Exhilarating Experiences There.

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.

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

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

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

The View From Space Is Like Having A Globe On Your Desk -- It's A Broadening Experience.

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.

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

A Space Program That Truly Goes Somewhere! With His Deeds, Not Only Words, President Obama Has Revitalized Our Struggling Space Program.

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.

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.

You Can Never Tell When A Commercial Space Venture Will Suddenly Become Viable.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

I Really Hate To Be Put In The Position Of Trying To Justify Something, A Decision That Was Made. I'm A Military Guy: When A Decision Is Made, I Go Along With It, Whatever The Manufactured Controversy And Criticism.

Everyone Should Take Their Hats Off To Neil Armstrong. He Is A Humble Guy Who Doesn't Wave His Own Flag.

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

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.

Climate Has Been Changing For Billions Of Years.

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

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.

Mars Is There, Waiting To Be Reached.

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

Mars Is The Symbolic And Totally Stimulating Next Objective That Could So Dominate The Next Century's Exploration Efforts. From Mars, The Resources Of All The Asteroids Will Become Readily Available.

Astronauts Are Not Superhuman. They Lead Ordinary Lives And Have Varied Personalities.

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.

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'.

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.

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.

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.

Monumental Achievements By Humanity Should Be Done By Major Organizations As Much Together As Possible.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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?

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.

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.

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.

Bravery Comes Along As A Gradual Accumulation Of Discipline.

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.

Some Things Just Can't Be Described. And Stepping Onto The Moon Was One Of Them.

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.

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.

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

We Can Continue To Try And Clean Up The Gutters All Over The World And Spend All Of Our Resources Looking At Just The Dirty Spots And Trying To Make Them Clean. Or We Can Lift Our Eyes Up And Look Into The Skies And Move Forward In An Evolutionary Way.

Space Is Not Just Going Up And Coming Back Down Again. Space Is Getting Into Orbit And Being There, Living There, Establishing A Presence, A Permanence.

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

The Future Is About Wings And Wheels And New Forms Of Space Transportation, Along With Our Deep-space Ambition To Set Foot On Another World In Our Solar System: Mars. I Firmly Believe We Will Establish Permanence On That Planet. And In Reaching For That Goal, We Can Cultivate Commercial Development Of The Moon, The Asteroid Belt, The Red Planet Itself And Beyond.

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

I Participated With Great Honor In Becoming One Of The First To Land On The Moon, And Now I Am Devoting And Have Devoted Many Years Of My Life To Enabling Americans To Lead International Nations To Permanence On The Planet Mars.

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.

I Poured The Wine Into The Chalice Our Church Had Given Me. In The One-sixth Gravity Of The Moon The Wine Curled Slowly And Gracefully Up The Side Of The Cup. It Was Interesting To Think That The Very First Liquid Ever Poured On The Moon, And The First Food Eaten There, Were Communion Elements.

You Can Tell I'm Not Too Bashful About Some Of My Feelings.

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.

The Government Needs A Role In Carrying Out Exploration. They Will Be Leading The Development Of The Engines That Are Needed, And The Private Sector Will Take Advantage Of Those.

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.

By Refocusing Our Space Program On Mars For America's Future, We Can Restore The Sense Of Wonder And Adventure In Space Exploration That We Knew In The Summer Of 1969. We Won The Moon Race; Now It's Time For Us To Live And Work On Mars, First On Its Moons And Then On Its Surface.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

This Is The Lm Pilot. I'd Like To Take This Opportunity To Ask Every Person Listening In, Whoever And Wherever They May Be, To Pause For A Moment And Contemplate The Events Of The Past Few Hours And To Give Thanks In His Or Her Own Way.

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.

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.

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

I Do Celebrity Ski Races All Over The World.

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

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

At The Core Of The Risk-free Society Is A Self-indulgent Failure Of Nerve.

We're Number One On The Runway.

I Inherited Depression From My Mother's Side Of The Family.

There May Be Aliens In Our Milky Way Galaxy, And There Are Billions Of Other Galaxies. The Probability Is Almost Certain That There Is Life Somewhere In Space.

I Remember It Was Hard To Believe That I Was Taking A Step Onto The Lunar Surface.

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.

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

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

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

Unfortunately, Pioneers Will Always Pave The Way With Sacrifices.

My First Biography Written In '73 Was Not 'journey To The Moon.' It Was 'return To Earth.' Because For Me, That Was The More Difficult Task - Disappointment.

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.

Fear And Worry Are Emotions That Cloud The Mind From Being Able To Think Clearly, To Remember What The Procedures Are To Deal With That Emergency.

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.

Only A Large-volume Market Like Space Travel Can Attack The Barrier Of High Costs.

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.

I Didn't Start Skiing Until I Was 50. My Wife Lois Taught Me How To Ski. I'm Proficiently Conservative.

Exploring And Colonizing Mars Can Bring Us New Scientific Understanding Of Climate Change, Of How Planet-wide Processes Can Make A Warm And Wet World Into A Barren Landscape. By Exploring And Understanding Mars, We May Gain Key Insights Into The Past And Future Of Our Own World.

The First Footfalls On Mars Will Mark A Historic Milestone, An Enterprise That Requires Human Tenacity Matched With Technology To Anchor Ourselves On Another World.

America Must Dream Again, And Have The Faith To Achieve The Dream.

Astronauts Working For The Government Will Always Need To Be Either Pilots Or Mission Specialists. Those Who Want To Be Pilots Should Have Military Experience - Ideally, A Test Pilot Background.

My Petite Little Platinum Blonde Beauty Of A Wife Suddenly Turned Into A Public-relations Dynamo. "the Business Is Buzz!" She Proclaimed, And Indeed So It Became.

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

Dwelling On An Engine Failure For A Pilot As He Rolls Down The Runway Is Not What He Should Be Thinking About - It's Obtaining A Smooth Liftoff! But In The Back Of His Mind, He Knows Exactly What To Do (or Pretty Much) And In Many Cases, If He's Alone In The Fighter Aircraft, He Has To Leave That Aircraft In An Ejection Seat In A Big Hurry!

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.

If We Can Conquer Space, We Can Conquer Childhood Hunger.

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.

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.

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

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

Every Couple Of Years, We Could Dispatch People From Earth To Mars.

Returning To The Moon With Nasa Astronauts Is Not The Best Usage Of Our Resources. Because Our Resources Should Be Directed To Outward, Beyond-the-moon, To Establishing Habitation And Laboratories On The Surface Of Mars That Can Be Built, Assembled, From The Close-by Moons Of Mars.

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.

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 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.

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.

The Guys Who Walk On Mars Are Going To Be Historic.

Pascal Lee Is A True Pioneer Of Mars Exploration.

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.

History Will Remember The Inhabitants Of This Century As The People Who Went From Kitty Hawk To The Moon In 66 Years, Only To Languish For The Next 30 In Low Earth Orbit. At The Core Of The Risk-free Society Is A Self-indulgent Failure Of Nerve.

Going To Mars Would Evolve Humankind Into A Two-planet Species.

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.

I Think Both The Space Shuttle Program And The International Space Station Program Have Not Really Lived Up To Their Expectations.

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

If You Want To Say That The Sky Is Black, And If I'm There, Even If I Fall Back Down Again, I Will Be Weightless For A Period Of Time - Maybe That's The Definition Of Space.

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

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.

Let's Not Spend Resources That We Don't Need To Be Sending Astronauts Back To The Moon. Let's Not Spend Expensive Resources On Bringing People Who Have Reached Mars Back Again. Prepare Them To Become A Growing Colony.

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.

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.

American Greatness Was Elevated Significantly After Sputnik.

American Greatness

To Appropriately Respond To An Emergency Requires A Very Clear Mind, To Cooly Analyze What The Observations Are And How To Fix It.

I'm Sure That There Are Places In The Deserts In Australia That Could Be Similar To Where We Might Want To Go On Mars.

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

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.

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.

We Have The Ability, At Such High Fidelity, To Simulate The Physical World Through Computers. But When The Spiritual World Or Human Behavior Comes Into Play, We Don't Have A Very Good Model For That At All.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

Impossible Things

There Should Be An International Lunar Base. That Is Certainly Doable.

The Biggest Benefit Of Apollo Was The Inspiration It Gave To A Growing Generation To Get Into Science And Aerospace.

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

Building Things

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.

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

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 Expected The Unexpected And Went [on The Moon] With An Open Mind. I Think The Visual Scene Was Described By My Words On First Landing - "magnificent Desolation." Magnificent For The Achievement Of Being There, And Desolate For The Eons Of Lifelessness.

I Don't Believe Any Pair Of People Had Been More Removed Physically From The Rest Of The World Than We Were.

I Am Definitely Not Rich.

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

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

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?

In Mars, We've Been Given A Wonderful Set Of Moons Where We Can Send Continuous Numbers Of People.

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.

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

Ray Bradbury Is One Who Is Contributing To The Understanding Of The Imagination And The Curiosity Of The Human Race.

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

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.

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?

Having Walked On The Moon, I Know Something About What We Need To Explore, Really Explore, In Space.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Mars Could Very Well Be A Staging Location For The Resources Of The Asteroid Belt. We Have To Learn How To Get A Payback Somewhere, But It's Beyond Mars That The Real Payoff Will Come From Minerals.

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.

On Apollo 11 In Route To The Moon, I Observed A Light Out The Window That Appeared To Be Moving Alongside Us. It Was Either The Rocket We Had Separated From, Or The 4 Panels That Moved Away When We Extracted The Lander From The Rocket And We Were Nose To Nose With The Two Spacecraft. So In The Close Vicinity, Moving Away, Were 4 Panels. And I Feel Absolutely Convinced That We Were Looking At The Sun Reflected Off Of One Of These Panels.

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.

For A Million Dollars, The Russians Would Take Two People, A Million Apiece, Around The Moon And Back. However, Stories, Videos That Come From The Space Station, And Other People, Are A Great Inspiration To Young People For An Exciting Career Field.

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

Shoot For The Moon

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

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

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