Carl Sagan Quotes

People make their own fates, and if enough of us make our fate to be space explorers, perhaps we can actually get some space exploration done.

If [Bush's] successors don't screw it up, within 10 years NASA will have us back to where we belong -- on other worlds.

If our long-term survival is at stake, we have a basic responsibility to our species to venture to other worlds. Sailors on a becalmed sea, we sense the stirring of a breeze.

How lucky we are to live in this time / the first moment in human history / when we are in fact visiting other worlds

We are involved in technology development for, you know, missions that we hope to plan that would take us to an asteroid and eventually to Mars.

Going to Mars would evolve humankind into a two-planet species.

We will certainly see teachers, journalists, artists and poets in space. Whatever it takes to the be the best is what it will take to get you into space.

When the history books are written in a thousand years, when space travel would have become routine, the moment that humans first left Earth will be of huge importance. Star City is a central part of this story and it deserves more recognition.

Exploring Mars is a far different venture from Apollo expeditions to the moon; it necessitates leaving our home planet on lengthy missions with a constrained return capability.

Years of science fiction have produced a mindset that it is human destiny to expand from Earth, to the Moon, to Mars, to the stars.

During my 8 years as chairman, I had the privilege to peer into the future to see dynamic citizen astronauts returning to and from the heavens which we can expect in the future.

Having walked on the Moon, I know something about what we need to explore, really explore, in space.

So I saw many planets, and they looked just a little bit brighter than they do from Earth.

The Space Program is an investment of the nation’s future…. Humans will not be confined to this planet forever.

We'll continue our quest in space. There will be more shuttle flights and more shuttle crews and, yes, more volunteers, more civilians, more teachers in space. Nothing ends here – our hopes and our journeys continue.

Anything that stimulates the public's imagination about the nobility and the importance of space exploration is something that I'm very excited to be a part of.

Seeing a full display of humanity involved in space is a game-changer for everyone. We've all looked at the stars; we've all imagined what was going on. Not everyone wants to go, but everyone wants to know what it's like.

It's clear that the only thing that is inhibiting us from doing further human exploration of space is money and the will to do it.

I have had the privilege to be a member of many high-performance teams at NASA, both on and off the planet.

There's something cool about being involved in new missions to other planets.

Our journey in going beyond our home planet is a human endeavor, and in the greatest tradition of exploration, past, present, and future spacefarers will continue to be enduring catalysts for inspiration in our quest to unravel the mysteries of the universe.

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've been on 26 space missions; they range from suborbital to orbital to shuttle experiments to planetary missions.

I know enough about the moon to know how unpleasant and inhospitable it is. . . . I know enough about Mars to know that you can't live there, you can't settle it. Mars and the moon are two ugly islands. So then, you say, what's the point of going to them? The point is to be able to say I've been there, I've set foot on them, and I can go further to look for beautiful islands.