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I grew up on the south side of Chicago in the 1960s, and I think there was a synchronicity of events that inspired me to be an astronaut, and, of course, the backdrop is nothing less than Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo. That was a time in our nation where we aspired to great things, and we achieved them.
John M. Grunsfeld -
When I grew up on the south side of Chicago, it was kind of a rough neighborhood, and when my parents saw the prospect of my older sister going to middle school, high school, they decided that we would move to the north side of Chicago, Highland Park, and for me, that was a whole new ballgame.
John M. Grunsfeld
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Sometimes astronauts feel a little ill or get minor scrapes. I trained as a crew medical officer to do basic treatment.
John M. Grunsfeld -
Science at NASA is all about exploring the endless frontier of the Earth and space.
John M. Grunsfeld -
A deep ocean under the icy crust of Ganymede opens up further exciting possibilities for life beyond Earth.
John M. Grunsfeld -
I thrive with high-performance challenges in front of me.
John M. Grunsfeld -
We need to move off the planet. And Mars is the next best place.
John M. Grunsfeld -
Growing up in Highland Park, in high school, I had some very influential teachers: I had a math teacher who taught calculus that helped me learn to be in love with mathematics; I had a chemistry teacher who inspired us to work what was in the class and to go beyond.
John M. Grunsfeld
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I kind of feel like I found my cause in life servicing the Hubble Space Telescope.
John M. Grunsfeld -
I have had the privilege to be a member of many high-performance teams at NASA, both on and off the planet.
John M. Grunsfeld -
There's a perspective that I've gained as an astronaut that I didn't get from my science activities. In my science activities, I learned by the seat of my pants. Spending 17 years as an astronaut, I learned the NASA formalism of systems engineering as if my life depended on it. Literally.
John M. Grunsfeld -
Regardless of what dreams you have, work very hard, play very hard, and have fun.
John M. Grunsfeld -
I got lucky and got assigned to Hubble.
John M. Grunsfeld -
There are some things worthy of risking your life for.
John M. Grunsfeld
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Small bodies in our solar system, like comets and asteroids, help us understand how the solar system formed and provide opportunities to advance exploration.
John M. Grunsfeld -
Our country... invests a tiny fraction of 1 percent in NASA, and this is what's so amazing to me, is with that small investment, we do so much for the country.
John M. Grunsfeld -
We don't know how many planets we're going to have to examine before we find life, and not finding it on 10 or 100 doesn't mean it's not there. This may be very tricky.
John M. Grunsfeld -
When people left on the Oregon Trail from St. Louis, they knew that only a fraction of them would make it to the West Coast. But they went anyway.
John M. Grunsfeld -
Hubble showed us the marvel and majesty of stars being born.
John M. Grunsfeld -
The Hubble Space Telescope, which was designed for extreme servicing, you know, we can fix everything. And the James Webb Space Telescope, where we can fix nothing. It has to work the first time. And it's a very complicated telescope.
John M. Grunsfeld
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Because of Hubble and other telescopes, we've now discovered that there are probably planets around every star, or virtually every star. There are solar systems around most stars. And the fact that we're here on a planet, Earth, means that it's likely there's lots of other Earths out there.
John M. Grunsfeld -
Only by studying large numbers of people can we figure out, are astronauts dying at a higher rate of cancer, and what types of cancers, than other people?
John M. Grunsfeld -
Once in a while, the universe lets you be free alone and in peace.
John M. Grunsfeld -
If I could live in space, I would definitely do that.
John M. Grunsfeld