Space Exploration !! // a Copy and Paste job I learned from Sir Artie !!


Interesting anyway .................


http://www.angelo.edu/faculty/kboudrea/cheap/cheap1_s.htm

There was one great moment of national unity in 1969: The night of
July 20, when we all tuned in to watch astronauts Neil Armstrong and
Buzz Aldrin walking around on the freaking Moon. It was an amazing
thing to see; nearly 94 percent of the nation's households were
watching on TV. This raises the question: What were the other 6
percent watching? Hee Haw?
     The only bad thing about the Moon landing is that for the next
twenty years, hardly a day would go by without some politician or
op-ed columnist asking some whiny question like: "If we can land a man
on the Moon, how come we can't develop a workable program for
identifying the warning signs of gum disease among lower-income
children in grades three through eight?" Fortunately we no longer hear
that type of question, because we're quite confident, as a nation,
that we no longer can land a man � excuse me, a person � on the Moon.
It's a real load off our minds.
     Dave Barry, Dave Barry Turns 50 (1998)

 

Everything in space obeys the laws of physics. If you know these laws,
and obey them, space will treat you kindly. And don't tell me man
doesn't belong out there. Man belongs wherever he wants to go � and
he'll do plenty well when he gets there.
     Wernher von Braun

 

There is just one thing I can promise you about the outer space
program: your tax dollar will go farther.
     Wernher von Braun

 

We can lick gravity, but sometimes the paperwork is overwhelming.
     Wernher von Braun

 

The main sticking point about Apollo would be this: after all the
arguments about wasted resources, impoverished multitudes, national
insecurities, base political motives, industrial greed, presidential
machismo, and more � many of them valid � had been made, the voyages
of men to the Moon would still reflect unprecedented managerial and
technological prowess within a time frame that was incredible. And the
result of that effort was not the conquest of another country or the
creation of an awesome weapon, but the greatest human voyage in
history; the Odyssey of the new age. The question that would haunt the
United States had to do with deciding just how important that was.
     William E. Burrows, This New Ocean: 
     The Story of the First Space Age (1998)

 

"I always thought Apollo was our unfinished obelisk," said [Stu]
Roosa. "It's like we started building this beautiful thing and then we
quit." He shook his head with a mixture of sadness and disbelief.
"History will not be kind to us, because we were stupid." [Stuart
Allen Roosa was Command Module Pilot on Apollo 14.]
     Andrew Chaikin, A Man on the Moon (1994)

 

Project Apollo remains the last great act this country has undertaken
out of a sense of optimism, of looking forward to the future. ... It
is the sense of purpose we felt then that seems as distant now as the
moon itself. If NASA has lost direction, it is only because we have
not chosen to give it one. Instead of letting the moon be the gateway
to our future, we have let it become a brief chapter in our history.
The irony is that in turning away from space exploration � whose
progress is intimately linked to the future of mankind � we rob
ourselves of the long-term vision we desperately need. Any society, if
it is to flourish instead of merely survive, must strive to transcend
its own limits. It is still as Kennedy said: Exploration, by virtue of
difficulty, causes us to focus our abilities and make them better.
     Andrew Chaikin, A Man on the Moon (1994)

 

To go places and do things that have never been done before � that's
what living is all about.
     Michael Collins, quoted in Gene Farmer and Dora Jane Hamblin, 
     First on the Moon: A Voyage with Neil Armstrong, 
     Michael Collins, Edwin E. Aldrin, Jr. (1970)

 

While computerization, miniaturization, and the technologies of
electronics and artificial materials have all leapt forward, we find
ourselves more stolidly earthbound than most scientists would have
predicted. By 1972, a total of 24 humans had made it farther from the
Earth than low orbit. In 1997, the total is still 24.
     James Gleick, "Lost in the Past: Getting the 
     March of Progress All Wrong" (1997)

 

It's hard to beat a day in which you are permitted the luxury of four
sunsets.
     John Glenn in 1962, after his orbital space 
     flight in the Mercury capsule Friendship 7

 

Space isn't remote at all. It's only an hour's drive away if your car
could go straight upwards.
     Sir Fred Hoyle, London Observer (1979)

 

For the first time in my life, I saw the horizon as a curved line. It
was accentuated by a thin seam of dark blue light � our atmosphere.
Obviously, this was not the "ocean" of air I had been told it was so
many times in my life. I was terrified by its fragile appearance.
     Ulf Merbold, German space shuttle astronaut (1988)

 

We belong to a species that has reached out a quarter of a million
miles to set foot on the moon, and if that is not miracle enough for
us all, I despair for our sense of wonder.
     James Randi, The Mask of Nostradamus

 

A few million years ago there were no humans. Who will be here a few
million years hence? In all the 4.6 billion year history of our
planet, nothing much ever left it. But now, tiny unmanned exploratory
spacecraft from Earth are moving glistening and elegant, through the
solar system. We have made a preliminary reconnaissance of twenty
worlds, among them all of the planets visible to the naked eye, all
those wandering nocturnal lights that stirred our ancestors toward
understanding and ecstasy. If we survive, our time will be famous for
two reasons: that at this dangerous moment of technological
adolescence we managed to avoid self-destruction; and because this is
the epoch in which we began our journey to the stars.
     Carl Sagan, Cosmos (1980)

 

Apollo conveyed a confidence, energy, and breadth of vision that did
capture the imagination of the world. That too was part of its
purpose. It inspired an optimism about technology, an enthusiasm for
the future. If we could fly to the Moon, as so many have asked, what
else were we capable of?
     Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of 
     the Human Future in Space (1994)

 

 

Apollo 13 (movie, 1995)


From now on we live in a world where man has walked on the moon.
That's not a miracle � we just decided to go.
     James Lovell (Tom Hanks) in William Broyles, Jr., 
     and Al Reinert, Apollo 13 (movie, 1995)

 

The astronaut is only the most visible member of a very large team and
all of us, right down to the guy sweeping the floor are honored to be
a part of it. What did the man say, "Give me a lever long enough and
I'll move the world" � well, that's exactly what we're doing here.
This is divine inspiration, folks. The best part of each one of us.
The belief that anything is possible, things like a computer that can
fit in a single room, and hold millions of pieces of information.
     James Lovell (Tom Hanks) in William Broyles, Jr., 
     and Al Reinert, Apollo 13 (movie, 1995)

 

GENE KRANZ: What about the scrubbers on the command module?
MISSION CONTROL TECHNICIAN 1: They take square cartridges.
MISSION CONTROL TECHNICIAN 2: And the ones on the LM are round.
KRANZ: Tell me this isn't a government operation.
     William Broyles, Jr., and Al Reinert, Apollo 13 (movie, 1995)

 

We've never lost an American in space, we're sure as hell not going to
lose one on my watch. Failure is not an option.
     Gene Kranz (Ed Harris) in William Broyles, Jr., 
     and Al Reinert, Apollo 13 (movie, 1995)

http://www.angelo.edu/faculty/kboudrea/cheap/cheap1_s.htm




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Quotes From Astronauts.

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