Rusty Schweickart Quotes

We need to take command of the solar system to gain that wealth, and to escape the sea of paper our government is becoming, and for some decent chance of stopping a Dinosaur Killer asteroid.

I don't want people to spend their nights worrying about getting hit by asteroids. But I do want them to encourage their political leaders to invest in the insurance, which will allow us to prevent it from happening.

I am not sure whether I should be afraid of a national security threat from another country or another solar system.

Space travel leading to skylife is vital to human survival, because the question is not whether we will be hit by an asteroid, but when. A planetary culture that does not develop spacefaring is courting suicide. All our history, all our social progress and growing insight will be for nothing if we perish. No risk of this kind, however small it might be argued to be, is worth taking, and no cost to prevent it is too great. No level of risk is acceptable when it comes to all or nothing survival.

Asteroids have us in our sight. The dinosaurs didn't have a space program, so they're not here to talk about this problem. We are, and we have the power to do something about it. I don't want to be the embarrassment of the galaxy, to have had the power to deflect an asteroid, and then not, and end up going extinct.

No government in the world today has explicitly assigned the responsibility for planetary protection to any of its agencies.

We have the capability - physically, technically - to protect the Earth from asteroid impacts. We are now able to very slightly and subtly reshape the solar system in order to enhance human survival.

As Mayor of San Francisco, I will work hard to ensure that, in the event of natural or man-made disasters, San Franciscans are prepared and our City is protected.

The nice thing about asteroids is that once you've found them, and once you have a good solid orbit on them, you can predict a hundred years ahead of time whether there is a likelihood of an impact with Earth.

When you have an asteroid threatening Earth, it's uncertain where it's going to hit until the last minute; the decision to take action has to be coordinated by the international community.

Americans who read the papers or watch Jay Leno have been aware for some time now that there is a slim but real possibility - about 1 in 45,000 - that an 850-foot-long asteroid called Apophis could strike Earth with catastrophic consequences on April 13, 2036.

From my perspective, it's really risk management to ensure that humans have the ability to go somewhere else in case there were to be some huge disaster on Earth.

By preventing dangerous asteroid strikes, we can save millions of people, or even our entire species. And, as human beings, we can take responsibility for preserving this amazing evolutionary experiment of which we and all life on Earth are a part.

To move forward, what's required is a unified space agenda based on exploration, science, development, commerce, and security.

Sooner or later the space program will need to save us by detecting and deflecting an incoming asteroid.

NASA should start thinking about this planet.

I have no hope that a nuclear disaster can be avoided.

This is the only global scale catastrophe that we know how to prevent, and for the cost of building a highway overpass.

The future of humanity in space will be determined by the answer to a key question: What will happen first, the first human born in space or the first combat fatality in space?

Asteroid detection, tracking, and defense of our planet is something that NASA, its interagency partners, and the global community take very seriously.

Here on Earth, we're exposed to asteroids hitting the Earth, eventual changes in the Sun, changes in the Earth's climate, things we're doing to the Earth's climate. If we want to survive, we need to become a multi-planet species. That's further down the road, but the first wave is going to be the explorers.

The number of people in the world engaged in this search for catastrophic impactors totals one or two dozen. How long into the future are you willing to protect Homo sapiens on Earth? Before you answer that question, take a detour to Arizona's Meteor Crater during your next vacation.

We could not wipe ourselves out with a nuclear war. I do not want so sound too positive. It would be a catastrophe, but it would not be a final one. We are not powerful enough for that. An asteroid could be that powerful. That is why we need to do our homework.

The development of space technology, including space warfare today, is similar in its technological-industrial significance to the development of navies a hundred years ago.

Newsreader: A huge asteroid could destroy Earth! And by coincidence, that's the subject of tonight's miniseries. Dogbert: In science, researchers proved that this simple device can keep idiots off your television screen. [TV remote control] Click.