Charles Duke Quotes

Houston, we have a problem.

Roger, we copy. It was beautiful from here, Tranquility. Over.

Apollo 11 was the movie premiere of moon landings, with Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin. Neil was a bit of a mystic, but also a taciturn guy from what I can tell. He really saw the moon as looking like the American high desert. He wasn't someone who dealt in metaphors.

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

Some things just can't be described. And stepping onto the moon was one of them.

In a small spacecraft, it was hard for the other two guys to sleep when the on-duty man was talking to Mission Control regularly.

I have the LIFE magazine of the men walking on the moon.

I was only 8 years old on July 20, 1969, when Neil Armstrong, 38-year-old commander of 'Apollo 11,' descended the cramped lunar module Eagle's ladder with hefty backpack and bulky spacesuit to become the first human on the moon.

We got to the moon.

If you remember back to some of the television we saw, Buzz and Neil on the Moon with Apollo 11. Black and white. They were bouncing around a lot. They were really bouncing on their tip toes. Quite fun to do.

On July 20th, 1969, Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong took the most expensive selfie in history. As the apex of an 8-year, $130 billion effort, they posed in front of a camera and took a shot designed to do one thing - to show our free enterprise democratic system was better than the rigid, authoritarian system that wanted to destroy us.

During one of the Apollo missions, I saw Walter Cronkite showing off the flight plan. It just mesmerized me. All this detail! That's what I wanted.

Apollo 8 comes a close second, it not equal, to Apollo 11 for the most exciting, memorable moments on the Apollo project.

As long as I could remember, I had looked forward to a handful of wonderful events - a total eclipse of the sun, the return of Halley's Comet, and the first trip to the Moon. I've still never seen that eclipse, and Halley's comet was a disappointment, but my sense of wonder was diamond-bright on that July 20, 1969.

No matter what your age, gender, politics, nationality, social or financial standing, every single person inhabiting the planet Earth has the same reaction to him: 'Holy crap, Buzz Aldrin, you went to the moon!'

To commemorate the 40th anniversary of the moon landing, the three astronauts from Apollo 11 visited the White House. Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin were allowed to set foot inside the White House, while Michael Collins was forced to drive around in circles outside.

When the Eagle landed on the moon, I was speechless—overwhelmed, like most of the world. Couldn't say a word. I think all I said was, 'Wow! Jeez!' Not exactly immortal. Well, I was nothing if not human.

I watched the first moon landing at a bar in Paducah, Kentucky, a fact worth mentioning only because I still remember how suddenly silence descended on this raucous place when Neil Armstrong started coming down that ladder.

My job during the EVAs, the spacewalks, is to act as the inside coordinator. I remain on the aft flight deck of the shuttle, and I act in a manner to help the gentlemen outside, my fellow crewmates, who are performing the EVA tasks.

Admittedly, it would take industrial-grade chutzpah and a massive dose of malevolence for anyone to bulldoze the spot where Neil Armstrong stepped off the Eagle lander. But even innocent visits could be damaging.

I want to be the first. If they'd let me go to the moon, I'd crawl all the way to Cape Kennedy just to do it. I'd like to go to the moon, but I don't want to be the second man to go there.

A typical smart phone has more computing power than Apollo 11 when it landed a man on the moon.

I remember it was hard to believe that I was taking a step onto the lunar surface.

I've always loved airplanes and flight. The space program was really important to me as a kid. I still have a photo of Armstrong and Aldrin on the moon in my living room.