Neil deGrasse Tyson Quotes

People say, oh we just need charismatic leaders to continue on to Mars. Now we've gone to the moon, of course Mars is next. No. Mars was never, of course, next. It is next if you think we went to the moon because we're explorers, but if you know we went to the moon because we were at war then we're never going to Mars. There's no military reason to do it, to justify the expenditure.

That's one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind.

What comes after the moon? I think you can guess: Mars.

Landing on the moon was a dream that millions of kids have had for hundreds of years.

We've gotta reinvest in space travel. We should've never left the moon.

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

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

I don't think the space station is innovative. Going to the moon was innovative because we had no idea how to do it.

For the new century, back to the moon, back to the future and this time back to stay. And then a journey into tomorrow, a journey to another planet, a manned mission to Mars.

Our whole approach to space has been very male. We wont up to the moon ...walked on it. And we never went back. We never called. We never wrote. It's the typical one night stand.

We're going to the moon because it's in the nature of the human being to face challenges.... we're required to do these things just as salmon swim upstream.

The American people prefer military rockets to public schools and flights to the moon to urban renewal.

The Chinese are planning a manned mission to the moon sometime after 2020, and subsequently, to Mars. The U.S. has abandoned that dream.

I was thinking as a little girl growing up that I would be there. When I look at whether we can go to Mars, it's definitely something we can do.

The space program needs a goal, and the goal should be humans to Mars.

I believed that once we got to the Moon, there was no stopping us. But in fact, we did stop.

I participated with great honor in becoming one of the first to land on the moon, and now I am devoting and have devoted many years of my life to enabling Americans to lead international nations to permanence on the planet Mars.

Many years ago the great British explorer George Mallory, who was to die on Mount Everest, was asked why did he want to climb it. He said Because it is there. Well, space is there, and were going to climb it, and the moon and the planets are there, and new hopes for knowledge and peace are there.

Six out of seven times we landed successfully [on the Moon]. I wanted to be a part of that and I was a part of that, so my personal feeling is of great gratefulness for having somehow been in a position to have been given the opportunity to be on that first landing. That's a marvelous experience for a little kid that grew up in New Jersey. So I'm very thankful, and I asked the whole world to give thanks once we successfully landed.

The Russians haven't been to the moon. You know why? Because they're space pussies... You really want to impress us? Bring us back our FLAG!

Astronauts will remain the explorers, the pioneers-the first to go back to moon and on to Mars. But I think it's really important to make space space available to as many people as we can. It's going to be a while before we can launch people for less than $20 million a ticket. But that day is coming.

You get to a certain moment where you realize all those humans who landed on the moon did so in between Chris [Nolan] being born and me being born and no one had gone back since, all these Super-8 films we grew up watching of rocket launches, you get to a certain age and you realize all the speeches about going back, they're speeches, there's no money there, we're not going back.

President Bush announced a billion dollar mission to the moon and Mars. He came up with a snappy new slogan - to drill where no man has drilled before.

NASA was invented as a response to Cold War steps. There are those who presumed that we went to the moon because we're explorers. We went to the moon because we were at war with the Soviet Union. And so when it became clear that they (Soviet Union) were not going to the moon, we're done with the moon.

As time goes by, I'm increasingly impressed by how very special and timely it was that we got the degree of national commitment needed to put people on the Moon. For the first time, this nation was united in trying to develop an interplanetary capability. We've been trying to repeat that situation ever since.