A star gazing, rocket riding, moon walking quote collection

Man's mind and spirit grow with the space in which they are allowed to operate.

— Krafft A. Ehricke, rocket pioneer.

A good rule for rocket experimenters to follow is this: always assume that it will explode.

— Astronautics, issue 38, October 1937.

Indeed the early history of rocket design could be read as the simple desire to get the rocket to function long enough to give an opportunity to discover where the failure occurred. Most early debacles were so benighted that rocket engineers could have been forgiven for daubing the blood of a virgin goat on the orifice of the firing chamber.

— Norman Mailer,  Of a Fire on the Moon, 1971.

When you get it right mighty beasts float up into the sky. When you get it wrong people die.

— Roger Bacon, c. 1384.

Even though the release was pulled, the rocket did not rise at first, but the flame came out, and there was a steady roar. After a number of seconds it rose, slowly until in cleared the frame, and then at express-train speed, curving over to the left, and striking the ice and snow, still going at a rapid rate. It looked almost magical as it rose, without any appreciably greater noise or flame, as if it said, "I've been here long enough; I think I'll be going somewhere else, if you don't mind.

— Robert Goddard, regards the first rocket flight using liquid propellants at Aunt Effie's farm 17 March 1926.

How many more years I shall be able to work on the problem I do not know; I hope, as long as I live. There can be no thought of finishing, for 'aiming at the stars' both literally and figuratively, is a problem to occupy generations, so that no matter how much progress one makes, there is always the thrill of just beginning.

— Robert H. Goddard, in a 1932 letter to H. G. Wells

Do you realize what we accomplished today? Today the spaceship was born.

— Dr. Walter Robert Dornberger, spoken to Wernher von Braun, after the first successful flight of  the A-4 rocket to the edge of space, 3 October 1942.

It all looked so easy when you did it on paper—where valves never froze, gyros never drifted, and rocket motors did not blow up in your face.

— Milton W. Rosen, rocket engineer, 1956.

Insisting on perfect safety is for people who don't have the balls to live in the real world.

— Mary Shafer, NASA Ames Dryden. Complete text of the newsgroup posting with context.

The desire for safety stands against every great and noble enterprise.

— Cornelius Tactitus

The principles are the same in aviation and space safety. You always have to fight complacency—you need formal programs to ensure that safety is always kept in mind.

— Jerome Lederer, interview with the New York Times, 1967.

There's the whole myth about rocket science. It's really not that hard. It's not brain surgery.

— John Powell, founder JP Aerospace, Wired magazine, July 2006.

It is a monster, that rocket. It is not a dead animal; it has a life of its own.

— Guenter Wendt, NASA Pad Leader, First On The Moon, 1970.

This beast is best felt. Shake, rattle, and roll. We are thrown left and right against our straps in spasmodic little jerks. It is steering like crazy, like a nervous lady driving a wide car down a narrow alley, and I just hope it knows where it's going, because for the first ten seconds we are perilously close to that umbilical tower.

— Michael Collins, Apollo Expeditions to the Moon, NASA SP-350, 1975.

You could see the flames and the outer skin of the spacecraft glowing; and burning, baseball-size chunks flying off behind us. It was an eerie feeling, like being a gnat inside a blowtorch flame.

 — Bill Anders, regards lift-off of the Saturn V.

It was a thunderingly beautiful experience—voluptuous, sexual, dangerous, and expensive as hell.

— Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., Playboy magazine interview, regards the Apollo launches, July 1973.'

The vehicle explodes, literally explodes, off the pad. The simulator shakes you a little bit, but the actual liftoff shakes your entire body and soul.

— Mike McCulley, 'Space Shuttle: The First 20 Years.''

We're all aware that for over 200 years and certainly over the last two months, freedom rings loud and clear across this country—but right here and right now, it's time to let freedom roar!

— Dom Gorie, commander of Space Shuttle Endeavour, just before engine ignition for mission STS-108, 5 Dec 2001.

The only thing I've experienced that could compare to the launch in terms of raw power was the Loma Prieta earthquake.

— Loren Acton, Space Shuttle: The First 20 Years'

The rockets light! The shuttle leaps off the launch pad in a cloud of steam and a trail of fire.

— Sally Ride, To Space and Back, 1986.