Douglas Adams Quotes

Vertical thought likes to imagine the vast distances between the stars.

Despite the immense distance between our own solar system (including the earth) and the nearest other solar systems, a journey from one system to another is theoretically possible, once an unlimited source of power is developed.

We are at the moment looking at space as something to be entered by the tremendous thrust of a rocket because that is the attitude of attacking the unknown. And that causes us not to realize that we are already on the most magnificently equipped spaceship, which could hardly be improved upon. It has got a source of temperature and energy just at the right distance from it. It's beautifully equipped with oxygen, with food supplies, with all kinds of delightful things to do while on the journey.... and it's traveling through space at a colossal speed... and it's called the planet Earth.

I remember at the age of six regaling my poor little sister with stories about the planets, and how far away they were and which ones might have life.

Even light, which travels so fast it takes most races thousands of years to realize that it travels at all, takes time to journey between the stars.

If we're going to have any chance of sending stuff to other star systems, we need to be laser-focused on becoming a multi-planet civilisation.

I've discovered that half the people would love to go into space and there's no need to explain it to them. The other half can't understand and I couldn't explain it to them. If someone doesn't know why, I can't explain it.

Mankind will not forever remain on Earth but, in the pursuit of light and space, will first timidly emerge from the bounds of the atmosphere and then advance until he has conquered the whole of circumsolar space.

Build a rocket ship and leave the earth!

When I grew up, I saw the moon landing, and I was fascinated watching them as a child, and that's what really turned me onto space and science fiction, and I started watching things like 'Lost In Space,' and that led me to 'Star Trek,' which was a major influence on my life.

I want to get to the moon. I want to go to Mars.

When I was a kid, I went from ground zero to Pluto. The first place I played was the Houston Astrodome.

The first stories I wrote when I was 12 were about Mars and landing on Mars.

Unless you have manned [space] travel, you don't stir the imagination of people.

There are many in the field of cosmology, who believe as I do, that finding ways to travel great distances will be essential to keeping human kind alive in an aging universe.

… conquering space …

Anything that stimulates the public's imagination about the nobility and the importance of space exploration is something that I'm very excited to be a part of.

There's so much interest and curiosity about alien life, interstellar travel. It's always in the news.

Dreams of warp drives and hyperspace are just that - dreams.

I'd love to go into space again if there were a mission to Mars. I'd also love to go to a completely different planetary system, out of our solar system.

I originally wanted to be an astronaut when I was a kid. Then I had this huge fear of black holes because my brother learned a bunch of stuff about it, and he's like, 'Oh, yeah, if you go into one you're never coming back.'

Planet colonization is not a short term concern of mine. The physical limitations of space travel render it low on the list for me.

Space is about 100 kilometers away. That’s far away—I wouldn’t want to climb a ladder to get there—but it isn’t that far away. If you’re in Sacramento, Seattle, Canberra, Kolkata, Hyderabad, Phnom Penh, Cairo, Beijing, central Japan, central Sri Lanka, or Portland, space is closer than the sea.

So we say, oh, my goodness; we think we've found another Earth-like planet. We will start trying to figure out how to get there. And I have this strong belief that whatever we think we can do, whatever we can dream, we can do.

The greatest gain from space travel consists in the extension of our knowledge. In a hundred years this newly won knowledge will pay huge and unexpected dividends.