Space Shuttle Quotes

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.

It appears that there are enormous differences of opinion as to the probability of a failure with loss of vehicle and of human life. The estimates range from roughly 1 in 100 to 1 in 100,000. The higher figures come from the working engineers, and the very low figures from management. What are the causes and consequences of this lack of agreement? Since 1 part in 100,000 would imply that one could put a Shuttle up each day for 300 years expecting to lose only one, we could properly ask "What is the cause of management's fantastic faith in the machinery? .. It would appear that, for whatever purpose, be it for internal or external consumption, the management of NASA exaggerates the reliability of its product, to the point of fantasy.

When I did my spacewalks, it was during space station construction. So the shuttle was docked to the fledgling ISS at the time. So we would always stay tethered.

After the loss of Columbia a couple of years ago, I think we were reminded of the risk. All of us, though, have always known that the Space Shuttle is a very risky vehicle, much more risky than even flying airplanes in combat.

The space shuttle was often used as an example of why you shouldn't even attempt to make something reusable. But one failed experiment does not invalidate the greater goal. If that was the case, we'd never have had the light bulb.

Then during the mission itself, I used the space shuttle's robot arm to release a satellite into orbit.

Most of us at least briefly considered answering, 'An astronaut,' when asked as children what we wanted to be when we grew up.

I was with Tom Wolfe at the launch of Apollo 17, which led him to 'The Right Stuff.'

Since the age of 6, I've always wanted to go to space.

I've had a chance to fly a lot of different airplanes, but it was nothing like the shuttle ride.

We have fans that circulate air in the cabin of the module of the space shuttle. They're running all the time. They're absolutely necessary because, otherwise, you will breathe your own CO2 and intoxicate yourself quite fast.

It takes a few years to prepare for a space mission.

I'm urging NASA to foster the development of what I call 'runway landers.' No, that's not the name of a high stakes gambler from Vegas. It's a type of spacecraft that flies to orbit like the retiring Shuttles but then glides to a landing like an airplane on a runway. Just like the Shuttles do.

I've been approached to do some things with astronauts and the preparation that astronauts go through.

When I was a kid, I was a bit of a space geek. I loved the space program and all things NASA. I would read books about our solar system; I had pictures of the Space Shuttle on my bedroom wall. And yes, I even went to Space Camp.

After the Challenger accident, NASA put in a lot of time to improve the safety of the space shuttle to fix the things that had gone wrong.

Things felt pretty crazy on earth in 1969, but the cosmos was friendly. Astronauts had round-trip tickets; they got home.

I was only a hero by default. The flights were few and far between. There weren't that many astronauts. The moon flights were so interesting and exciting.

After floating for nine and a half months in space, gravity is not your friend.

If you think about the energy that a rocket engine has to put out and all the fuel and you're sitting on top of like a bomb. And on the Space Shuttle, that big orange tank is filled with liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen, the white cell rocket boosters on the sides are filled with solid propellant. There's a lot of energy in all those chemicals there and you've got to control it in a way so it doesn't explode. So, there's a lot of plumbing, a lot of valving, a lot of control systems, and it's a very complicated thing. So, how do you bring the price of that down?

I witnessed the building of the Space Shuttle Columbia, the first orbiter to be launched into space.

NASA works for the White House. There are many at NASA that wish they were building a modern replacement for the Shuttle. However, they had marching orders to instead work on other things, some of which should have no place in a research organization.

Ironically, it is only when disaster strikes that the shuttle makes the headlines. Its routine flights attracted less media interest than unmanned probes to the planets or the images from the Hubble Telescope. The fate of Columbia (like that of Challenger in 1986) reminded us that space is still a hazardous environment.

Chernobyl happened in April of 1986. A few months earlier, in January 1986, the Challenger space shuttle exploded. It did not have the impact on the environment and the amount of lives that Chernobyl did, but it was the result of the same exact problem: a failure of a lot of people and institutions over a long period of time.

I did not come to NASA to make history.