James Van Allen Quotes

I ran the astronaut school for six years, and I was the commandant and when I finished in '65, 26 of my guys went into space as NASA astronauts that I trained.

It is despairing to consider that the cost and reliability of access to space have barely changed since the Apollo era over three decades ago. Yet in virtually every other field of technology, we have made great strides in reducing cost and increasing capability.

Am I willing to go to Mars? Yes, but I'm not willing to spend nine months getting there, then wait 18 more months until the planets align to come home.

I think the human race doesn't have a future if it doesn't go into space.

Space travel is the only technology that is more dangerous and more expensive now than it was in its first year. Fifty years after Yuri Gagarin, the space shuttle ended up being more dangerous and more expensive to fly than those first throwaway rockets, even though large portions of it were reusable. It's absurd.

Every day, we get a little bit closer to the kind of expertise and the kind of experience we're going to need to go there. I'd love to be the guy walking on Mars.

Life science research can be done on multiple platforms. Since we have a very small number of people flying into space, the more people you have, the better.

Supplying fuel for a Mars expedition from the lunar surface is often suggested, but it's hard to make it pay off - Moon bases are expensive, and just buying more rockets to launch fuel from Earth is relatively cheap.

If we drive down the cost of transportation in space, we can do great things.

Land on Mars, a round-trip ticket - half a million dollars. It can be done.

I don't think the space station is innovative. Going to the moon was innovative because we had no idea how to do it.

We're going to be focusing our science on things that will take us farther and longer into space. For many of those experiments, the crew members are human guinea pigs, which is fine; that's part of my job. I don't mind being a human guinea pig.

There is very little difference between men and women in space.

I believe the biggest impediment we have right now with going to Mars is public commitment. More people need to see themselves as a part of space travel; we need to see more inclusiveness.

When 'Apollo 13' appeared as an opportunity and I began to tackle that in as authentic a way as I possibly could, I really became enthralled by the philosophical side of space travel and why we need to explore - what it means to us here on Earth - all of those things. I became a huge proponent.

The main goal of the International Space Station is to work on peaceful projects. In space, we're all people from Earth.

I think the more people that can go up to space and look back is great, but it's not just this overview and look back effect. There's also a lot of concrete gains from getting more people up in space.

I'm not in favor of manned spaceflight, because I don't see that it goes anywhere.

I love working at NASA, but the part that has been the most satisfying on a day-to-day basis, hour-to-hour, minute-to-minute, has been working on board the space station. Even if I'm just cleaning the vents in the fans, it all is important.

Everything was so new - the whole idea of going into space was new and daring. There were no textbooks, so we had to write them.

The case for sponsorships in commercial spaceflight is compelling and could dramatically impact the economics of space tourism. Global brands are looking for fresh, new ways to position themselves on the leading edge of their categories.

The exploration of space: Be it by humans or robots, based on the best choice for the mission and the most efficient means to return the data and science sought. Most of the time, this will mean we send robots due to cost and danger. But sometimes, we will need the irreplaceable judgment and descriptive abilities of a person on the spot.

My desire to contribute to the spaceflight team as we move forward in our exploration of space has only increased over the years.

I think a colony in space will take much longer than sci fiction writers think. It costs $10,000 to put a pound of anything into near earth orbit. That is your weight in gold. It costs about $100,000 a pound to put you on the moon. And it costs $1,000,000 a pound to put you on Mars.

The feeling of reduced gravity and the limitations of the space suit resulted in a slow-motion movement. Perhaps not too far from a trampoline, but without the springiness and instability.