Rusty Schweickart Quotes

I had the good fortune and the gift to be one of the 12 men to walk on the moon.

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

I watched the moon landing as a boy, and I thought that was the most exciting thing ever, going into space, orbiting Earth and exploring other planets. That looked fantastic.

Space fascinated me because I'm from the generation that saw Neil Armstrong walk on the moon live on TV. I was 7 at the time. Also, 'Lost in Space' was one of my favorite shows on TV back then.

I've always been interested in space and the idea of exploration in that area since I was a child growing up through the '60s.

As a card-carrying space nerd and NASA's chief scientist, I love space movies, from 'Star Trek' to 'Star Wars' to my all-time favorite - 'The Dish', an Australian comedy that celebrates that first moment when Neil Armstrong stepped down onto the surface of our moon.

We got to the moon.

Whenever I gaze up at the moon, I feel like I'm on a time machine. I am back to that precious pinpoint of time, standing on the foreboding - yet beautiful - Sea of Tranquility. I could see our shining blue planet Earth poised in the darkness of space.

The fascination to go into space has existed for hundreds of years. But as we do things and they're successful, people get bored.

America's love affair with traveling into outer space is deeply entrenched.

We have spent billions to go to the moon - we go to this lesser satellite called the moon and say we are in space, but we are in space right now; we just don't feel ourselves to be in space. Some forms of art and some forms of spirituality do give us that sense.

From now on we live in a world where man has walked on the Moon. It's not a miracle; we just decided to go.

I can honestly say - and it's a big surprise to me - that I have never had a dream about being on the moon.

Here men from the planet Earth first set foot upon the Moon. July 1969 AD. We came in peace for all mankind.

We must still think of ourselves as pioneers to understand the importance of space.

Sending a couple of guys to the Moon and bringing them back safely? That's a stunt! That's not historic.

From now on we live in a world where man has walked on the Moon. It's not a miracle; we just decided to go.

I told them how excited I would be to go into space and how thrilled I was when Alan Shepard made his historic flight, and when John Kennedy announced on the news that the men had landed safely on the moon, and how jealous I was of those men.

Neil Armstrong was no Christopher Columbus. In most respects, he was better. Unlike the famous fifteenth century seafarer, Armstrong knew where he landed. He also spent his time in public service, not in jail, and his passing was marked by world-wide encomiums. He ended his days as a celebrated explorer rather than a royal inconvenience.

Go to the moon - that's my dream.

I remember; I was 15 years old when Neil Armstrong put feet in the moon.

One of my earliest recollections is being woken up at some ungodly hour in the morning by my parents and sat in front of the fairly new black and white television, watching a grainy image of a man in a white suit climbing down a ladder. It was the first moon landing, and I became a sort of spaceman, as many kids were.

When I was 12, I saw the Apollo moon landings, and I thought that was really fantastic and exciting and thought, 'That's what I want to do.'

Mankind is led into the darkness beyond our world by the inspiration of discovery and the longing to understand. Our journey into space will go on.

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