SPACE TRAVEL QUOTES III

quotations about space travel and exploration

Space Travel quote

That's ultimately what space travel was all about, was sending out ships from earth into space. And not just in some, like, space shuttle that's got the foam coming off of it. You need your own glowing, you know, multicolored' space ship.

BECK

"The Horrible Fanfare/Landslide/Exoskeleton"


I'd sooner exchange ideas with the birds on earth than learn to carry on intergalactic communications with some obscure race of humanoids on a satellite planet from the world of Betelgeuse.

EDWARD ABBEY

"The First Morning", Desert Solitaire

Tags: Edward Abbey


Some say that we should stop exploring space, that the cost in human lives is too great. But Columbia's crew would not have wanted that. We are a curious species, always wanting to know what is over the next hill, around the next corner, on the next island. And we have been that way for thousands of years.

STUART ATKINSON

New Mars, March 7, 2003

Tags: Stuart Atkinson


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

Tags: Henry Joy McCracken


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

Tags: Robert A. Heinlein


As long as we are a single-planet species, we are vulnerable to extinction by a planetwide catastrophe, natural or self-induced. Once we become a multiplanet species, our chances to live long and prosper will take a huge leap skyward.

DAVID GRINSPOON

Slate, January 7, 2004

Tags: David Grinspoon


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


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


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


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

Tags: Saul Bellow


Space can be mapped and crossed and occupied without definable limit; but it can never be conquered. When our race has reached its ultimate achievements, and the stars themselves are scattered no more widely than the seed of Adam, even then we shall still be like ants crawling on the face of the Earth. The ants have covered the world, but have they conquered it -- for what do their countless colonies know of it, or of each other?

ARTHUR C. CLARKE

"We'll Never Conquer Space"

Tags: Arthur C. Clarke


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

"Space Prober"


Anyone who sits on top of the largest hydrogen-oxygen fueled system in the world, knowing they're going to light the bottom, and doesn't get a little worried, does not fully understand the situation.

JOHN W. YOUNG

attributed, New Mexico Museum of Space History


NASA's next urgent mission should be to send good poets into space so they can describe what it's really like.

SHANNON HALE

Dangerous


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


Human DNA spreading out from gravity's steep well like an oilslick.

WILLIAM GIBSON

Neuromancer

Tags: William Gibson


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"


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


Today the stars and tomorrow the galaxies. No force exists in the Universe that can stop us.

JAMES P. HOGAN

Inherit the Stars


In my mind, public space travel will precede efforts toward exploration -- be it returning to the moon, going to Mars, visiting asteroids, or whatever seems appropriate. We've got millions and millions of people who want to go into space, who are willing to pay. When you figure in the payload potential of customers, everything changes.

BUZZ ALDRIN

Esquire, January 2003