Allison Schroeder Quotes

My dad worked at NASA his whole career; he's a research scientist.

Two months after I got out of test pilot school, I saw an advert that said NASA was recruiting more astronauts. The best job you could have as a test pilot was being an astronaut, so I volunteered.

I didn't go into the NASA program to pick up rocks or to go the moon or anything else. I went in there because I was a military officer, and that was the next notch in my profession.

I had always been interested in the space program, and I didn't know if I could be an astronaut like I'd dreamt about when I was a little kid - to me it sounded kind of silly, someone grow up to be an astronaut - but, when I was in my 20s, I thought maybe I can get a job with NASA or a contractor, do something with the space program.

I can't think of anything specific growing up that pointed me toward NASA at all. I was interested in the Moon landings just about the same as everyone else of my generation. But I never really thought about being an astronaut or working in space myself.

I think it's really a sign of great American strength that we do invest the money we do in technology, in these hard projects, in NASA.

When I got to college, I discovered how many incredible opportunities NASA offered students pursuing a career in the space industry.

If I were to do a movie about Apollo 13, I'd be at NASA studying what it took to go into space. It's part of your job to go deep, to interview the right people.

I knew I wanted to be a part of NASA in any case, and so I chose my goals in education to be consistent with working at NASA even as, you know, a scientist.

NASA is a big organization with a lot of needs that have to be met. So there are a lot of opportunities.

New Jersey makes important contributions to the space program. We want to make sure it just doesn't happen in Houston.

On a standard space shuttle crew, two of the astronauts have a test pilot background - the commander and the pilot.

Well, it's still a bit uncertain, but I will do the consulting, and I'll see how I can contribute. But I'm sure whatever I do will involve the space program. That's where my passion is.

I didn't really decide that I wanted to be an astronaut for sure until the end of college.

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've always been a bit of a space geek. I wrote an article years ago about the neutral buoyancy tank, which is this biblically sized pool where they train astronauts. And it was just the coolest thing.

Fortunately, I got called down to NASA for an interview. And one thing led to the next, and one day I got that call. I've been here about seven years now and am really enjoying it.

By refocusing our space program on Mars for America's future, we can restore the sense of wonder and adventure in space exploration that we knew in the summer of 1969. We won the moon race; now it's time for us to live and work on Mars, first on its moons and then on its surface.

We constantly learn new lessons up here. The experiences we gather will enable us to establish a long-term station on the moon and to go on to Mars.

Not long after I got my test pilot qualification, I realised there was no manned space flight programme in the U.K., and there was unlikely to be one.

'The Martian' may be fiction, but at NASA, we are working to make it a reality.

You talk about American technocracy and you find men on the moon, not once, but several times... and safely home again.

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.

Canada has made a strong commitment as a partner in the International Space Station and, like the other partners, wishes to see the assembly of this unique orbiting laboratory continue.

I've always loved airplanes and flight. The space program was really important to me as a kid. I still have a photo of Armstrong and Aldrin on the moon in my living room.