Julie Payette Quotes

Perhaps the best motivation for going to Mars is political. It is obvious that no single nation currently has either the will or the resources to do it alone, but a consortium of nations and space agencies could achieve it within 20 years.

I would suspect strongly that over a period of time, if we put our mind to going to Mars, it will be a consortium of several countries.

Every time I give a talk, I ask the audience - especially if it's kids - how many want to go to Mars. At least half raise their hands. I don't think there's going to be any shortage of volunteers.

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.

Every day, we get a little bit closer to the kind of expertise and the kind of experience we're going to need to go there. I'd love to be the guy walking on Mars.

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

By going to Mars one day, we will make things better for us here on Earth.

And from, you know, small ideas, bigger ideas emerge. So we're starting with suborbital space flights and we'll then go into orbital space flights and, you know, maybe one day we'll send people on a one-way voyage into the depths of space as per the science fiction trips.

Of course, I was completely enthralled by the space program as a kid - particularly Apollo 11 - and was glued to the television like most of the world. Then I stopped thinking about it too much. I was a little disappointed that they weren't going on to Mars at the time, but I didn't think much of it. I was more interested in becoming a director at that point in my life and falling in love, things like that.

We believe that when men reach beyond this planet, they should leave their national differences behind them.

We used to joke about canned men, putting people in a can and seeing how far you can send them and bring them back. That's not the purpose of this program... Space is a laboratory, and we go into it to work and learn the new.

Mars is the next frontier, what the Wild West was, what America was 500 years ago. It's time to strike out anew....Mars is where the action is for the next thousand years....The characteristic of human nature, and perhaps our simian branch of the family, is curiosity and exploration. When we stop doing that, we won't be humans anymore. I've seen far more in my lifetime than I ever dreamed. Many of our problems on Earth can only be solved by space technology....The next step is in space. It's inevitable.

How lucky we are to live in this time / the first moment in human history / when we are in fact visiting other worlds

We explore because we are human and we want to know. I hope that Pluto will help us on that journey.

By the year 2000 we will undoubtedly have a sizable operation on the Moon, we will have achieved a manned Mars landing and it's entirely possible we will have flown with men to the outer planets.

Space-ships and time machines are no escape from the human condition.

Space exploration must be undertaken not only out of simple human curiosity but also to further the survival of the species. The twentieth century has seen the unprecedented development and proliferation of magnificent technologies. Many of them, through design, ignorance, or misuse, are capable of destroying life as well as enhancing it. Space exploration alone holds the promise of eventual escape from a dying planet, provided we wisely manage our resources in the meantime and actually survive that long.

There are people that tell you we gotta colonize Mars in the next 50 years if we're to survive as a human race. It's absolute stupidity. All it does is scare people - particularly young, impressionable minds who already think there isn't gonna be a planet in 30 years. Now they're thinking, since there isn't gonna be a planet, "If we don't get to Mars in 30 years, I'm gonna die."

If we continue at this leisurly pace, we will have to pass Russian customs when we land on the moon.

As soon as somebody demonstrates the art of flying, settlers from our species of man will not be lacking on the Moon and Jupiter. Who would have believed that a huge ocean could be crossed more peacefully and safely than the the narrow expanse of the Adriatic, the Baltic Sea or the English Channel? Given ships or sails adapted to the breezes of heaven, there will be those who will not shrink from even that vast expanse.

Space is the ultimate frontier. I think when people historically thought of the frontier, there was where you were living and then there was some edge beyond which no one had explored.

Curiosity is the essence of human existence and exploration has been part of humankind for a long time. The exploration of space, like the exploration of life, if you will, is a risk. We've got to be willing to take it.

The crossing of space ... may do much to turn men's minds outwards and away from their present tribal squabbles. In this sense, the rocket, far from being one of the destroyers of civilisation, may provide the safety-value that is needed to preserve it.

I can only think of one experience which might exceed in interest a few hours spent under water, and that would be a journey to Mars.

During the next 50 years, in countless cycles, in countless entrepreneurial companies, this let's just go and do it mentality will help us finally get off the planet and irreversibly open the space frontier. The capital and tools are finally being placed into the hands of those willing to risk, willing to fail, willing to follow the dreams.