Chuck Yeager Quotes

We're going to be focusing our science on things that will take us farther and longer into space. For many of those experiments, the crew members are human guinea pigs, which is fine; that's part of my job. I don't mind being a human guinea pig.

Life science research can be done on multiple platforms. Since we have a very small number of people flying into space, the more people you have, the better.

My desire to contribute to the spaceflight team as we move forward in our exploration of space has only increased over the years.

I’m not a risk taker. But astronauts are professionals, so you get out on the field and play ball. I tried to take it in stride because that’s what I had to do to get into space. That’s where I belong, and I’m pretty good at it.

Ever since I saw the moon landing as a young teenager, I was determined I would go into space one day.

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 was a frustrated astronaut all my life. I grew up at a time when space seemed to have no boundaries, and lots of us presumed humans would be living on the moon and landing on Mars.

My childhood dreams were focused on being part of the effort to make humanity a multiplanetary species.

I think a Moon base is not necessary to get to Mars, but I think it will be helpful. It would give you a chance to develop and mature some systems; long duration, deep space stuff; and you're close enough to get some help, via radio from Earth.

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.

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.

The ability of the humans to not only function in space but be very functional when they arrive at their destination, those are the kinds of things we're learning from the science. Fuel transfer technologies and all the things we can learn about the space environment are all valuable to us for pressing on out.

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.

So most astronauts are astronauts for a couple of years before they are assigned to a flight.

For NASA, space is still a high priority.

Am I willing to go to Mars? Yes, but I'm not willing to spend nine months getting there, then wait 18 more months until the planets align to come home.

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.

Is manned space exploration important? Yes - not least because it simply works much better than sending robots.

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.

Every day, we get a little bit closer to the kind of expertise and the kind of experience we're going to need to go there. I'd love to be the guy walking on Mars.

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

If we drive down the cost of transportation in space, we can do great things.

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

Then, much later, my next dream was to become an astronaut, and I was fortunate to realize that dream, also.