Neil deGrasse Tyson Quotes

I think it's good to have competition. Now we have a third country that can launch astronauts, so it's good for all of us. It makes us a little bit more competitive and wanting to be the leader.

If I can get some student interested in science, if I can show members of the general public what's going on up there in the space program, then my job's been done.

For NASA, space is still a high priority.

I grew up watching a lot of the coverage of the early U.S. space program, all the way back starting with Mercury and then through Gemini and Apollo and of course going to the moon as the main part of the Apollo program.

It's very sad that there's going to be a hiatus in manned space flight from the U.S. The Shuttle was a fantastic, hugely complex vehicle. It was inevitable it would come to an end, but this is the opportunity for the commercial world to get involved. As the Shuttle era ends, another window of opportunity opens.

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

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

We are not building the space station for science any more than we went to the moon for science, but we got a hell of a lot of good science out of it.

Iran wants to join the group of countries that want to know about the biggest things, like space.

As far as entertainment, 'The Right Stuff' is a good movie. As far as a documentary of the early space days, which they purported it to be, it is not at all.

The conquest of space is not merely a technological project of interest to a handful of select scientists and specialists, valuable though that research and information may be.

We're not up there in space just to joyride around. We're up there to do things that are of value to everybody right here on Earth.

Space exploration has taken a tremendous technological leap. India as a developing nation has been recognized globally for how it has economized its missions, which have been comparatively low-cost compared with other countries.

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

I always admired the U.S. as the country of the space shuttle, of technological achievement.

The astronaut corps is a very small part of a very large team that enables human spaceflight.

I think if you were between maybe 6 and 16, there was nothing like Apollo, and I wonder if there can be something like that again. We'll just have to see.

Because now, you know, it's going to be a number of years yet before we have our own new boosters and new spacecraft to go to our own International Space Station and proceed with all the research that we spent $100 billion putting up there to give us that research capability for the future for people right here on Earth.

I think there's going to be a very sudden shift in people's perception of the International Space Station, because suddenly it's going to look much, much bigger than it already is.

By the year 2000 we will undoubtedly have a sizable operation on the Moon, we will have achieved a manned Mars landing and it's entirely possible we will have flown with men to the outer planets.

We will never be an advanced civilization as long as rain showers can delay the launching of a space rocket.

We used to joke about canned men, putting people in a can and seeing how far you can send them and bring them back. That's not the purpose of this program... Space is a laboratory, and we go into it to work and learn the new.

A space program that truly goes somewhere! With his deeds, not only words, President Obama has revitalized our struggling space program.

If I could get one message to you it would be this: the future of this country and the welfare of the free world depends upon our success in space. There is no room in this country for any but a fully cooperative, urgently motivated all-out effort toward space leadership. No one person, no one company, no one government agency, has a monopoly on the competence, the missions, or the requirements for the space program.

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.