Christa McAuliffe Quotes

NASA's charter is to give Americans the means to get into the wild, black yonder, beyond even the grasp of the federal government that funded it.

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.

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.

I like acting for now. But after seeing Apollo 13, what I really want to do is to be an astronaut. I'm dying to go to a space camp next summer!

What I'm trying to do is, is to make a significant difference in space flight. And help make space flight accessible to almost anyone.

If humanity doesn't land on Mars in my lifetime, I would be very disappointed.

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

The big reason why we don't have space colonies and regular trips to the moon is that flying into outer space is just plain 'hard.' The business of safely transporting people off the Earth is a costly affair that requires a lot of technology.

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.

I'm in favor of changing the destination of humans. There are a lot of manned missions that can be done, but not in the direction of the moon.

Ever since I was a kid, I always wanted to be an astronaut.

I was motivated to improve the U.S. strategy of going back to the moon in 1985. That's a long time ago. Going back to the moon would be a great achievement for tourism adventure flights.

I don't go along with going to Moon first to build a launch pad to go to Mars. We should go to Mars from Earth orbit. We have already been to the Moon; we've already practiced.

We're not going to get humans to Mars until at least the mid-2030s, and the world is going to change by then.

I wanted to get superimposed on a shuttle launch.

Back in the days of Apollo, sending humans to the moon was the only viable way to get the scientific data we wanted. But now, with our computer and robotics technology, there's very little an astronaut can do on Mars that a well-designed rover can't.

Getting to space for satellites is tough. Getting to space with humans aboard is even tougher.

There's something cool about being involved in new missions to other planets.

You need nerves of steel if climbing aboard a rocket is your career path.

Most of us at least briefly considered answering, 'An astronaut,' when asked as children what we wanted to be when we grew up.

What guy didn't want to be an astronaut growing up?

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

Aviation - and space travel, in particular - have always been especially captivating.

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

Most people never believed in the real possibility of going to the moon, and neither did I until I was in my twenties.