Wernher von Braun Quotes

Buzz Aldrin doesn't think we need to go back to the Moon - that we should go straight on to Mars. I'm more on the side that says we should go back to the Moon. I think there's a lot we can utilise the Moon for scientifically.

I think we all want to really live good lives, and we all really want to have a healthy planet, although I don't know if we're supposed to be on it forever. Now, does that mean that we should be building rocket ships to shoot us into outer space? Well if we can, I think we should.

We've gotta reinvest in space travel. We should've never left the moon.

We can no better imagine what will be happening on the moon 500 years from now than Columbus could imagine contemporary Manhattan. Except to say that it will be a place familiar to billions of people.

Look how far the human race has come in terms of air and space travel in the last hundred years. So in the next couple of thousand years, you've got to believe that we're going to be able to do all kinds of amazing things.

We must become a space-faring nation.

That's one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind.

I've always wanted to be part of something that would radically change the world. . . . People forget the power of inspiration. All of humanity went to the moon with the Apollo missions. The issue was cost. There was no chance to build a base and create frequent flights. That's the problem I would like to solve.

President Bush announced a billion dollar mission to the moon and Mars. He came up with a snappy new slogan - to drill where no man has drilled before.

As soon as somebody demonstrates the art of flying, settlers from our species of man will not be lacking on the moon and Jupiter... Given ships or sails adapted to the breezes of heaven, there will be those who will not shrink from even that vast expanse.

The Moon has given us months, tides and a destination that ever-beckons. It's time we build a rocket and go to stay.

By going to Mars one day, we will make things better for us here on Earth.

People make their own fates, and if enough of us make our fate to be space explorers, perhaps we can actually get some space exploration done.

I think the International Space Station is providing a key bridge from us living on Earth to going somewhere into deep space.

We need to move off the planet. And Mars is the next best place.

I believed that once we got to the Moon, there was no stopping us. But in fact, we did stop.

We should have stayed on the moon. We should have made moon the base, instead of building space stations, which are fragile and which fly apart.

I think a colony in space will take much longer than sci fiction writers think. It costs $10,000 to put a pound of anything into near earth orbit. That is your weight in gold. It costs about $100,000 a pound to put you on the moon. And it costs $1,000,000 a pound to put you on Mars.

What comes after the moon? I think you can guess: Mars.

So we say, oh, my goodness; we think we've found another Earth-like planet. We will start trying to figure out how to get there. And I have this strong belief that whatever we think we can do, whatever we can dream, we can do.

If God wanted man to become a spacefaring species, he would have given man a moon.

So there he is at last. Man on the moon. The poor magnificent bungler! He can't even get to the office without undergoing the agonies of the damned, but give him a little metal, a few chemicals, some wire and twenty or thirty billion dollars and vroom! there he is, up on a rock a quarter of a million miles up in the sky.

My final question: Why are we not looking at moving out onto the sea? Why do we have programs to build a habitation on Mars and we have programs to look at colonizing the Moon but we do not have a program looking at how we colonize our own planet, and the technology is at hand!

If we continue at this leisurly pace, we will have to pass Russian customs when we land on the moon.

We are the lucky generation. We first broke our earthly bonds and ventured into space. From our descendants- perches on other planets or distant space cities, they will look back at our achievement with wonder at our courage and audacity and with appreciation at our accomplishments, which assured the future in which they live.