Alan Stern Quotes

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

NASA's charter is to give Americans the means to get into the wild, black yonder, beyond even the grasp of the federal government that funded it.

I think I was very interested in the space program as a kid, watching the first Apollo missions to the moon, and it's something I thought that would be a lot of, of fun and exciting and a very worthwhile job.

I came to dedicate my life to opening space to the average person and crafting designs for new spaceships that could take us far from home. But since Apollo ended, such travels were only in our collective memory.

You talk about American technocracy and you find men on the moon, not once, but several times... and safely home again.

We got to the moon.

America can take man to the moon, and America can take men to Mars - and beyond.

Space exploration is important research to our economic and national defense, and America's space program is a symbol of our success as a scientifically and technologically advanced nation.

When I was younger, humans went to the moon when I was about 4 years old, and I imagined that as I got older and became an adult that traveling in space was going to be fairly common and something that we all did. So I grew up believing that I'll be an astronaut just like these guys were that were going to the moon.

There's nothing I would like more than to watch a manned Mars landing.

The fact we don't have a lunar base has nothing to do with the technology. It has to do with public commitment and societal support.

When President Kennedy challenged Americans to go to the moon, the question wasn't whether we'd get there, it was only when we'd get there.

I worked on all of the Apollo manned missions and a couple of Apollo unmanned missions.

We certainly would not be here, living and working on the International Space Station without the commitment and dedication of all the folks who worked the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo Programs as well as the Russian Space Program.

Space exploration has taken a tremendous technological leap. India as a developing nation has been recognized globally for how it has economized its missions, which have been comparatively low-cost compared with other countries.

If you look, like, in 1960, there was no such thing as an astronaut. It was a totally fanciful concept, but nine years later or whatever, we were landing on the moon, which is just astonishing.

Sure, there were hopes that Constellation's systems could later be adapted to support more ambitious goals. But Apollo had those hopes, too. It didn't work in 1970, and it wasn't going to work in 2020.

Retain the vision for space exploration. If we turn our backs on the vision again, we're going to have to live in a secondary position in human space flight for the rest of the century.

My childhood dreams were focused on being part of the effort to make humanity a multiplanetary species.

Russia is still the leader in world space exploration. But its position of leader involves great responsibility - we have no right to lag behind. We can and we must move constantly forward.

After Apollo 17, America stopped looking towards the next horizon. The United States had become a space-faring nation, but threw it away. We have sacrificed space exploration for space exploitation, which is interesting but scarcely visionary.

Well, I don't think we should go to the moon. I think we maybe should send some politicians up there.

If humanity doesn't land on Mars in my lifetime, I would be very disappointed.

In 1966, NASA took over in space, and it has been a bureaucratic mess ever since.

For NASA, space is still a high priority.