Alastair Reynolds Quotes

'The Martian' may be fiction, but at NASA, we are working to make it a reality.

We're not going to get humans to Mars until at least the mid-2030s, and the world is going to change by then.

This year-in-space mission was a profound challenge for all involved, and it gave me a unique perspective and a lot of time to reflect on what my next step should be on our continued journey to help further our capabilities in space and on Earth.

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.

I think a Moon base is not necessary to get to Mars, but I think it will be helpful. It would give you a chance to develop and mature some systems; long duration, deep space stuff; and you're close enough to get some help, via radio from Earth.

President Bush's proposal to focus our resources on sending humans to Mars is intriguing, but it is not the most compelling reason that Americans ought to focus our interest on the Red Planet.

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

I think humans will reach Mars, and I would like to see it happen in my lifetime.

We must become a space-faring nation.

Going to Mars would make NASA great again.

Will we have a colony on Mars? I think so.

It's not a matter of if we're going to go to Mars, it's a matter of when.

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

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.

We are involved in technology development for, you know, missions that we hope to plan that would take us to an asteroid and eventually to Mars.

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

As a member of the House Subcommittee on Space and Aeronautics, I am a firm believer in the American space program.

With the mission to Mars, the whole world wants to get involved. So we actually have 13 different space agencies from around the world working on the global exploration road map.

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.

In Mars, we've been given a wonderful set of moons... where we can send continuous numbers of people.

Buzz Aldrin doesn't think we need to go back to the Moon - that we should go straight on to Mars. I'm more on the side that says we should go back to the Moon. I think there's a lot we can utilise the Moon for scientifically.

By refocusing our space program on Mars for America's future, we can restore the sense of wonder and adventure in space exploration that we knew in the summer of 1969. We won the moon race; now it's time for us to live and work on Mars, first on its moons and then on its surface.

Chemical propulsion is obsolete to go anywhere other than the moon. Three days - that's acceptable. But for Mars, we need propulsion technologies to get us there in, say, 60 days - then spend whatever length of time we want to spend and return when we want to come home.

Clearly, some creative thinking is badly needed if humans are to have a future beyond Earth. Returning to the Moon may be worthy and attainable, but it fails to capture the public's imagination. What does get people excited is the prospect of a mission to Mars.

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