Leroy Chiao Quotes

Does it make sense for the U.S. to expend hundreds of billions of dollars to mount a new Apollo-style program to return to the moon? Or have we blazed that trail? Shouldn't we help other nations achieve this goal with their own resources but with our help?

Going back to the moon is not visionary in restoring space leadership for America. Like its Apollo predecessor, it will prove to be a dead end littered with broken spacecraft, broken dreams and broken policies.

One of the things I'm proudest of is, on my record 'That Was the Year that Was' in 1965, I made a joke about spending $20 billion sending some clown to the moon. I was against the manned space program then, and I'm even more against it now, that whole waste of money.

Well, I don't think we should go to the moon. I think we maybe should send some politicians up there.

Many of us in Congress have been calling on the Administration to articulate a bold mission for NASA. It seems that the President is answering that call. I wholeheartedly support his vision for going back to the moon, and from there to worlds beyond.

I think the crux of the matter was that if we were going to become partners in, for example, the International Space Station, we had to gain the respect of a country like the United States and particularly its space organization, NASA.

Why should man's first flight to the moon be a matter of national competition? Why should the United States and the Soviet Union, in preparing for such expeditions, become involved in immense duplications of research, construction and expenditure?

We didn't go to the moon to explore or because it was in our DNA or because we're Americans. We went because we were at war and we felt a threat.

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

The next humans to walk on the moon may be Chinese. Only China seems to have the resources, the dirigiste government, and the willingness to undertake a risky Apollo-style programme. If Americans or Europeans venture to the moon and beyond, this will have to be in a very different style and with different motives.

I was a graduate student in 1984 when President Ronald Reagan called for the construction of a new space station. I knew then that I wanted to apply for the astronaut program, and this was an exciting development.

The Chinese are planning a manned mission to the moon sometime after 2020, and subsequently, to Mars. The U.S. has abandoned that dream.

Obama's space policy doesn't differ much from George W. Bush's.

We certainly would not be here, living and working on the International Space Station without the commitment and dedication of all the folks who worked the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo Programs as well as the Russian Space Program.

Under a Trump administration, Florida and America will lead the way into the stars.

Over the last eight years, the Obama-Clinton administration has undermined our space program tremendously. That will change. So many good things come out of it, including great jobs. And it will change very quickly under a Trump administration and it will change before it is too late.

My expertise is the space program and what it should be in the future based on my experience of looking at the transitions that we've made between pre-Sputnik days and getting to the moon.

Astronauts have been stuck in low-Earth orbit, boldly going nowhere. American attempts to kick-start a new phase of lunar exploration have stalled amid the realisation that NASA's budget is too small for the job.

There were about six years when there was not one American who went into space. We shouldn't do that again.

I think both the space shuttle program and the International Space Station program have not really lived up to their expectations.

After Apollo 17, America stopped looking towards the next horizon. The United States had become a space-faring nation, but threw it away. We have sacrificed space exploration for space exploitation, which is interesting but scarcely visionary.

Here I am at the turn of the millennium and I'm still the last man to have walked on the moon, somewhat disappointing. It says more about what we have not done than about what we have done.

Sending a couple of guys to the Moon and bringing them back safely? That's a stunt! That's not historic.

If we go back to the moon, we're guaranteed second, maybe third place because while we are spending all that money, Russia has its eye on Mars. Landing people on the moon will be terribly consuming of resources we don't have. It sounds great - 'Let's go back. This time we're going to stay.' I don't know why you would want to stay on the moon.

We need the kind of leadership exemplified by President Kennedy to just do it! But we must do it as good stewards, aggressively exerting control over the moon. We can best do this by going there.