Helen Sharman Quotes

The life expectancy of people going to Mars may be decreased by the higher level of radiation that they receive.

We want to make sure we get living astronauts to the surface of Mars.

I personally think going to Mars, if it takes two years or two and a half years, that's doable. Certainly, the first people who go there, that's going to be a big motivator, being first getting to Mars.

Perhaps the best motivation for going to Mars is political. It is obvious that no single nation currently has either the will or the resources to do it alone, but a consortium of nations and space agencies could achieve it within 20 years.

I would suspect strongly that over a period of time, if we put our mind to going to Mars, it will be a consortium of several countries.

Every time I give a talk, I ask the audience - especially if it's kids - how many want to go to Mars. At least half raise their hands. I don't think there's going to be any shortage of volunteers.

My vision is for a fully reusable rocket transport system between Earth and Mars that is able to re-fuel on Mars - this is very important - so you don't have to carry the return fuel when you go there.

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

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.

Land on Mars, a round-trip ticket - half a million dollars. It can be done.

Can you imagine, in 2030, taking a space cruise on the very ship that carried the first human beings to Mars? I can't believe that people wouldn't line up for that possibility.

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.

I believe the biggest impediment we have right now with going to Mars is public commitment. More people need to see themselves as a part of space travel; we need to see more inclusiveness.

The Chinese are planning a manned mission to the moon sometime after 2020, and subsequently, to Mars. The U.S. has abandoned that dream.

Human beings are fragile things, and for the period of time it takes to get them to Mars and back, you have dangerous radiation from the sun and the galaxy. We have to think about issues like that.

I was thinking as a little girl growing up that I would be there. When I look at whether we can go to Mars, it's definitely something we can do.

My view is that we should go back to the moon, build up the infrastructure to make flights there commonplace - be comfortable with it - then use that infrastructure to expand and go to Mars.

Going to Mars would make NASA great again.

My dad and my mom convinced me to go into biomedical engineering because they said astronauts going to Mars will need life support systems.

I think if Elon Musk asked me to go to Mars as a musician, to sing for people, I think I might just do that. A return ticket would be a nice incentive, though.

They say that in space, nobody can hear you scream. The first time I stepped out of the airlock, I was ready to scream - not because I was scared but because I was so excited to see the Earth below me.

The earth appears fragile and defenceless in the harsh environment of space and when one sees the amount of technology required to keep a human alive in that environment, one begins to feel blessed that one is an inhabitant of planet earth that supports human life.

In my space journey, I felt vulnerable because we did not have anyone with medical background. When we make that big trip to Mars, we would need a doctor on board.

If two billion people wanted to watch a robot fly by Pluto, imagine what it will be like when the first humans step on Mars. It'll be the most unifying event anybody could ever put on.