Ulrich Walter Quotes

As an astronaut, especially during launch, half of the risk of a six-month flight is in the first nine minutes.

I was only a hero by default. The flights were few and far between. There weren't that many astronauts. The moon flights were so interesting and exciting.

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

Astronauts are very professional and when they're preparing for launch, they prepare for it as the most serious endeavor of our lives.

No, I think most astronauts recognize that the space shuttle program is very high-risk, and are prepared for accidents.

My key aim is to get man on the surface of Mars by the mid-2030s.

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.

I think most astronauts are not risk takers. We take calculated risks for something that we think is worthwhile.

After the Shuttle checks out on its two upcoming flights, it will be ready to take larger components up to the International Space Station later this fall.

It takes a few years to prepare for a space mission.

I'd love to go back to space, I don't know any astronaut who doesn't want to.

I've been approached to do some things with astronauts and the preparation that astronauts go through.

Things felt pretty crazy on earth in 1969, but the cosmos was friendly. Astronauts had round-trip tickets; they got home.

I was working as a flight director on the Gemini IX mission, and it seemed almost overnight I was picking up the responsibilities for the Apollo Program.

I think a lot of the American people feel more than a little disappointed that the high-water mark for human exploration was 1969. The dream of human space travel has almost died for a lot of people.

I wanted to be an astronaut when I was a kid. I grew up in Houston. Gordo Cooper was my favorite astronaut.

And just when we were at the end of our design process there was the news that the Italian government and the U.S. government had signed an agreement to fly the first Italian astronaut on that flight.

I think I was very interested in the space program as a kid, watching the first Apollo missions to the moon, and it's something I thought that would be a lot of, of fun and exciting and a very worthwhile job.

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.

Any astronaut can tell you you've got to do everything you can to learn about your life support system and then do everything you can to take care of it.

I will go around the space shuttle and give a guided tour of the major areas and describe what is done in each area. This will be called The Ultimate Field Trip.

So everything turned out fine, and we were given the opportunity to go to Washington and be briefed on the project of man in space, and given the opportunity to choose whether we wanted to get involved or not.

I would suspect strongly that over a period of time, if we put our mind to going to Mars, it will be a consortium of several countries.

The space shuttle has been a fantastic vehicle. It is unlike any other thing that we've ever built. Its capabilities have carried several hundred people into space.

Every shuttle mission's been successful.