I was inspired by the men who walked on the moon. It really was my inspiration, I think, you know, as a kid of 9 years old - I know I'm dating myself, but - I thought, 'What a cool job!'
At the time of Apollo 11, I was a grade-schooler, and I remember every time an Apollo mission would take place that, like a lot of little boys, I'd gather in front of the TV for hours and hours and hours with my little brother.
When Kennedy said, 'Let's go to the moon,' we didn't yet have a vehicle that wouldn't kill you on launch. He said we'll land a man on the moon in eight years and bring him back. That was an audacious goal to put forth in front of the American people.
I was with Tom Wolfe at the launch of Apollo 17, which led him to 'The Right Stuff.'
Millions of people were inspired by the Apollo Program. I was five years old when I watched Apollo 11 unfold on television, and without any doubt it was a big contributor to my passions for science, engineering, and exploration.
We can't start over and develop a Saturn 5-type vehicle from scratch.
In space-flight terms, six landings on the moon back in the Sixties and Seventies doesn't mean much.
In the 1960s, reaching for the moon meant just that. It was a metaphor for attempting the impossible, and we attempted it, and we did it. And it inspired millions of people in every way. The number of science graduates in this country doubled in the 1960s at every level - high school, college, Ph.D.
The first arrival of earthly life on another celestial body ranks as an epochal event not only for our generation, but in the history of our planet. Neil Armstrong was at the cusp of the Apollo programme. This was a collective technological effort of epic scale, but his is the one name sure to be remembered centuries hence.
It was an incredible series, 'From The Earth To The Moon.' All of it's great.
[The 1975 Chase Econometrics] showed that for every one dollar spent on Apollo, 14 came back into the U.S. economy.
After Apollo 17, America stopped looking towards the next horizon. The United States had become a space-faring nation, but threw it away. We have sacrificed space exploration for space exploitation, which is interesting but scarcely visionary.
Somebody else can be the first man on the moon. It doesn't interest me at all.
I think the Lewis and Clark Expedition was the greatest undertaking in American History. I think landing a man on the moon pales next to it.
We had risen to probably one of the greatest challenges in history, put a man on the moon in the decade. We'd created incredible technologies. But what was most important, we'd created the teams, what I call the human factor. People who were energized by a mission.
As we leave the Moon at Taurus-Littrow, we leave as we came, and God willing, as we shall return, with peace and hope for all mankind.
A space nerd as a kid, I learned early that putting a man on the moon took American unity, grit, determination, teamwork, hardship, innovation, sacrifice and patriotism.
The C Mission was the first command and service module. The D Mission was the first mission involving a lunar module in a manned fashion and the command module, and the E would take this lunar module and the command module into a very high elliptical orbit, about 4,000-mile-high orbit.
I cycled on a crew assignment as the backup commander on Apollo 16 and would have flown Apollo 19 on a return mission to the moon. However, the last few missions of the Apollo Program were canceled for budgetary reasons. So I lost my second opportunity to land on the moon.
I can remember walking on the moon.
I was an eight-year-old kid when I watched the first Apollo Moon Landing way back in 1969 and there was something about that moment that really stuck in my head. I'd always been interested in space and flying and I was building model rockets and model airplanes, but something about that moment, I can remember like it was yesterday watching the Apollo Lunar Lander approach the surface of the Moon and then later watching Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin take the first steps on the Moon, and something that day started the dream for me that, hey, I want to be like those guys.
I want to be the first. If they'd let me go to the moon, I'd crawl all the way to Cape Kennedy just to do it. I'd like to go to the moon, but I don't want to be the second man to go there.
It's true that Apollo 10's lander was overweight. Late in the craft's development, it became clear that its ballooning weight was endangering the whole mission.
First I believe that this Nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon.
I respect John Kennedy for saying that he had a dream that we'd go to the moon before the end of the decade.
