Ralph Merkle Quotes

I founded a launch company called International Microspace when I graduated medical school in 1989. We were trying to build a microsatellite launcher.

It's something to see a satellite being launched from another satellite.

Claiming that solid rockets are necessary for a heavy-lift launcher is obvious nonsense.

There are few aspects of everyday life that aren't touched by the technologies developed for space travel.

Well, it's still a bit uncertain, but I will do the consulting, and I'll see how I can contribute. But I'm sure whatever I do will involve the space program. That's where my passion is.

Rocket science is tough, and rockets have a way of failing.

My background is in physics, so I was the mission specialist, who is sort of like the flight engineer on an airplane.

I don't think we're going to build a 50-person spacecraft or a 100-person spacecraft.

The Apollo programme of the 1960s had some weight problems, too; in particular, the lunar lander needed some fairly drastic weight-reduction work.

It's like turning the space program over to the Long Island Railroad.

It seems that 'rocket scientist' is a job category that's here for the long haul, like 'mortician.' But all this activity masks an important point: rockets are not a terribly efficient way to lift things into space.

We can put a satellite in orbit in 60 days.

No one can deny that Russia fired some big rockets and placed satellites into orbit. But there's been a deluge of poppycock about 'miraculous' scientific advances that enabled them to do it. Much of this analysis reflects ignorance about rocketry.

There is hardly a facet of an Indian citizen that has not been touched by ISRO's technology.

Russia can offer state-of-the-art technology, .. For example, we can help other countries launch space devices such as satellites.

An experienced designer with more freedom to act might have realised that there was just too much optimism in the Ares I concept: that a shuttle SRB was simply too small as a first stage for a rocket carrying the relatively heavy Orion spacecraft.

I've put a lot of my life into making it possible to fly in space at all.

Then during the mission itself, I used the space shuttle's robot arm to release a satellite into orbit.

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.

We can't start over and develop a Saturn 5-type vehicle from scratch.

Not long after I got my test pilot qualification, I realised there was no manned space flight programme in the U.K., and there was unlikely to be one.

The key virtue of orbital assembly is that it eliminates the tight connection between the size of the expedition and the size of the rockets used to launch it.

Rockets are cool. There's no getting around that.

There was a space program before there was integrated circuits.

With every inch of land on Earth now catalogued by our satellites, the stars are the next place we as a species must travel. And with a booming world population that will hit 9.1 billion in 2050, large-scale space travel may become a necessity.