Henry Spencer Quotes

It was very difficult to control the descent. At a height of seven kilometres, I catapulted out of my capsule and parachuted down to Earth. I was very familiar with parachutes because I was a sky diver before.

One small ball in the air. I wouldn't believe that at this moment you have to fear the intelligence aspects of this.

A fall from such a height is rarely straight downwards.

When you freefall for 7,000 feet it doesn't feel like you're falling: it feels like you're floating, a bit like scuba diving.

You know how you put peanut butter on a piece of bread and the bread falls - it never falls on the bread side down, it always falls peanut butter side down. That's because of gravity.

What is not a risk with a parts-per-billion test can always be exposed to a parts-per-trillion examination. If rats cope with .the heaviest dose of a chemical that can be soaked into their food and water, you can always gavage them. Or try mice or rabbits. Again, the only stopping rule is discovery of the sought-for effect, or exhaustion of the investigator (or his funds). Many of the risk assessment procedures used today are logically indistinguishable from those used by the Inquisition.

A rock is harder than a feather, you can talk and jabber and make exceptions, but in the end, if you have to choose which one is gonna hit you on the head, you'll choose the feather every single time.

As a jumper, I try to defy gravity as long as I can. But no matter how far I jump, I'll always hit the earth eventually.

There are actors that come in and do a fight sequence, but when they have to fall on the ground or take a tag to the belly a bit too hard, they're shocked at how real it is.

People say, 'Are you insane?' But the most successful climbers are the most calculating, with the most refined sense of risk. They're hyper-conscious of safety. They're the least insane people I know.

There's a perspective that I've gained as an astronaut that I didn't get from my science activities. In my science activities, I learned by the seat of my pants. Spending 17 years as an astronaut, I learned the NASA formalism of systems engineering as if my life depended on it. Literally.

Health has always been my first priority. If it's something that is going to make it worse, or if I'm not cleared by the doctors, then, you know, I won't step on the field.

NASA trains you to assess emergency situations and react in a way to keep yourself and everyone else safe.

We try to reduce the danger to a minimum, of course. And then we prepare for accidents with alternate plans. For instance, if I'm turning over a stagecoach, I try to take into consideration what moves I have to make if it flips in the wrong direction. Without those emergency plans you get hurt.

'Big Brother' reminded me that housemates should be aware of health and safety.

There's so many things, when you're in national security, that you do that aren't perfect, but you do them because you think you're doing what the country needs to be safe.

Nothing good happens when you jump in the air.

A fall from the third floor hurts as much as a fall from the hundredth. If I have to fall, may it be from a high place.

Proper accounting is like engineering. You need a margin of safety. Thank God we don't design bridges and airplanes the way we do accounting.

Really, being a librarian is a much more dangerous job than you realize.

Clive [Oppenheimer] and I figured out that I'm the only one probably in the film industry who is clinically sane. I say that as a joke, but there's a grain of truth to it. I'm not a stupid daredevil who jumps into the crater of the volcano to get the closest close-up, I'm not one of those. And you have to be aware that you have a crew with you and you are responsible.

Every fat (vat) must stand upon its bottom.

I know with certainty, that [an honest man] is not to put his hand into the fire, and hold it there, till it be consumed: And thisevent, I think I can foretell with the same assurance, as that, if he throw himself out at the window, and meet with no obstruction, he will not remain a moment suspended in the air.

It's physics. Pure physics, I'm falling fast and faster still. So fall with me. Fall down with me. And stay.

We may stop ourselves when going up, never when coming down.