Human Spaceflight Quotes & Sayings

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. — Buzz Aldrin

As she drove the Trace, each curve revealing a scene rich with life and as picturesque as illustrations from a children's book, Anna was struck again by the beauty of the state. Over her years as a Yankee and a Westerner, she'd heard Mississippi described many ways. Beautiful had never been one of them. — Nevada Barr

My position is that it is high time for a calm debate on more fundamental questions. Does human spaceflight continue to serve a compelling cultural purpose and/or our national interest? Or does human spaceflight simply have a life of its own, without a realistic objective that is remotely commensurate with its costs? Or, indeed, is human spaceflight now obsolete? — James Van Allen

As we walk along our path of Life,
we meet people every day.
Most are simply met by chance;
but some are sent our way.
These become the Special Friends,
whose bond we can't explain ...
the ones who understand us,
and share our joy and pain.
Their love contains no boundaries,
so even when apart,
their presence still embraces us,
with a warmth felt in the heart.
This love becomes a passageway,
where even the miles disappear.
And the Special Friends which Life sends our way,
remain forever near. — Anonymous

The government will see that human spaceflight is useful - for science and the economy - and inspirational. — Helen Sharman

In a dispassionate comparison of the relative values of human and robotic spaceflight, the only surviving motivation for continuing human spaceflight is the ideology of adventure. But only a tiny number of Earth's six billion inhabitants are direct participants. For the rest of us, the adventure is vicarious and akin to that of watching a science fiction movie. At the end of the day, I ask myself whether the huge national commitment of technical talent to human spaceflight and the ever-present potential for the loss of precious human life are really justifiable. — James Van Allen

I'm really hopeful about the future of space exploration and human spaceflight. Civilization as we know it has been defined by exploration. You know, we need to go off and find out what's around the next corner and what's just beyond what we already know. It's part of our being; it's part of our moral fiber to go off and explore. — Alan G. Poindexter

Spaceflight isn't just about doing experiments, it's about an extension of human culture. — Chris Hadfield

Karma, you are one demented bitch. — Carian Cole

Wine is the liquid form of the Goddess Tara, who is the saviour of all living creatures, the mother of all enjoyment and Release, the destroyer of dangers and disease, who burns up all sins and purifies the worlds, O Beloved , who grants all success and increases knowledge, understanding and learning. — Wendy Doniger

Throughout the history of spaceflight and the study of effects of exploring to human, space environment to human body, we have accumulated enough knowledge to be able to move over to the next step: getting ready for interplanetary missions, for interplanetary exploration. — Roman Romanenko

I think we need someone in a responsible political position to have the courage to say, 'Let's terminate human spaceflight.' — James Van Allen

When young, one is confident to be able to build palaces for mankind, but when the time comes one has one's hands full just to be able to remove their trash. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

It continues to startle me, the range of political ideologies that are compatible with enthusiasm for spaceflight. Tax-and-spend liberals of the Great Society stripe, obviously - but also spending-slashing Tea Partiers, hippie peaceniks, fierce libertarians, military loyalists, and apathetics of every shade. So very many of us seem to feel that a love of human spaceflight is reconcilable with our beliefs, and we can all explain why. — Margaret Lazarus Dean

There is scarcely an instance of a man who has made a fortune by speculation and kept it — Andrew Carnegie

I hope there will be continued U.K. investment in human spaceflight to enable Britain to benefit from space travel in the longer term and that many more Britons - women and men - will travel into space. — Helen Sharman

I get standing ovations at meetings when I say Britain should be involved in human spaceflight. Unfortunately, that goal has been blocked by a handful of people in high office. — Helen Sharman

We visit the Launch Control building, where on one wall of the seventies-style lobby are hung the mission patches of every human spaceflight that has ever been launched from here, 149 to date. Beneath each mission patch is a small plaque showing the launch and landing dates. Two of them - Challenger's STS-51L and Columbia's STS-107 - are missing landing dates, because both of these missions ended in disasters that destroyed the orbiters and killed their crews. The blank spaces on the wall where those landing dates should have been are discolored from the touch of people's hands. This would be unremarkable if this place were a tourist attraction, or regularly open to the public. But with the rare exception of Family Days, this building is open only to people who work here. In other words, it's launch controllers, managers, and engineers who have been touching these empty spaces with their hands, on their way to and from doing their jobs. After — Margaret Lazarus Dean

The beauty of the space station, and of human spaceflight, is that it is now at a level of maturity where you can invite people on-board, which is what I worked so hard to do on social media and all the videos I made. — Chris Hadfield