Pete Buttigieg Quotes

As we reflect back upon the tragic loss of Challenger and her brave crew of heroes who were aboard that fateful day, I am reminded that they truly represented the best of us, as they climbed aloft on a plume of propellant gasses, reaching for the stars, to inspire us who were Earthbound.

I am deeply grieved by the loss of the crew of Columbia. I express my sincere condolences to the families and friends of the astronauts. I believe that their names will remain as the bright sparkling stars in the universe and will light the way for those who will follow them on the difficult roads of space exploration.

The crew of the space shuttle Challenger honored us by the manner in which they lived their lives. We will never forget them, nor the last time we saw them, this morning, as they prepared for their journey and waved good-bye and 'slipped the surly bonds of earth' to 'touch the face of God.

I think a lot of the American people feel more than a little disappointed that the high-water mark for human exploration was 1969. The dream of human space travel has almost died for a lot of people.

Although I know a lot of the previous shuttle flights, in theory, had their tasks laid out; but there were still some changes that came along for them.

I was only a hero by default. The flights were few and far between. There weren't that many astronauts. The moon flights were so interesting and exciting.

There were about six years when there was not one American who went into space. We shouldn't do that again.

We don't have the capability today to put a human being in space of any kind, shape or form, which is absolutely, totally unacceptable when we got the greatest flying machine in the world sitting down at Kennedy in a garage there with nothing to do.

Well, with so many space shuttle missions that we've done, I think it's just sort of natural that each one hasn't necessarily gotten the attention that the early ones did.

I grew up watching a lot of the coverage of the early U.S. space program, all the way back starting with Mercury and then through Gemini and Apollo and of course going to the moon as the main part of the Apollo program.

There was a space program before there was integrated circuits.

Being an American is something I wanted to be for a very long time, probably since I saw the moon landing when I was a child.

Manned spaceflight has lost its glamour - understandably so, because it hardly seems inspiring, 40 years after Apollo, for astronauts merely to circle the Earth in the space shuttle and the International Space Station.

After the Shuttle checks out on its two upcoming flights, it will be ready to take larger components up to the International Space Station later this fall.

I'd love to go back to space, I don't know any astronaut who doesn't want to.

I've been approached to do some things with astronauts and the preparation that astronauts go through.

I was eight years old when I saw the Apollo moon landing in 1969. I was riveted.

I was with Tom Wolfe at the launch of Apollo 17, which led him to 'The Right Stuff.'

It's pretty amazing to me that we have had a space shuttle program that's lasted for 30 years - for one space shuttle. That's quite an achievement.

I was born outside Kennedy Space Center.

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.

The Space Shuttle was a great machine. Without it, we would not have been able to build the International Space Station because the parts and modules were delivered by Shuttle crews.

I'm a major NASA nerd, so I've spent a lot of time learning about the space race and the Apollo missions.

In the '60s astronauts were rockstars. Everyone wanted to be an astronaut.

We used to have a crew of three on board the space station and even at one time a crew of two people, so it's something we can adjust to.