Astronauts Quotes
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So most astronauts are astronauts for a couple of years before they are assigned to a flight.
Sally Ride
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Let's not spend resources that we don't need to be sending astronauts back to the moon. Let's not spend expensive resources on bringing people who have reached Mars back again. Prepare them to become a growing colony.
Buzz Aldrin
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Astronauts working for the government will always need to be either pilots or mission specialists. Those who want to be pilots should have military experience - ideally, a test pilot background.
Buzz Aldrin
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In a big picture sense, it's more national prestige that we're risking. You know, we are proud of our space program, but as we were talking earlier, the average American doesn't think that much about it right now. So, it may seem like something we could just give up and not really worry about it, but I think it starts creeping into the national psyche. If American astronauts have to hitch rides with the Russians or other nations in the future.
Leroy Chiao
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What keeps me up at night? Probably most, thinking about the future for my kids. It sounds kind of funny, but not so much what they're going to do, but how as a parent, how my wife and I as parents, how best we should prepare them for the world. And I know everybody does this, I think everybody stays up at night thinking about the best thing for their kids, and astronauts are no different.
Leroy Chiao
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As far as Russia goes, they've been our partner for a long time now, since the early '90's. So you know, what's that, that's more than 15 years. And there have been times where things were a little tense, a little testy, but by and large, the partnership has been very successful. To give you two examples of that, when the Columbia accident occurred, the Russians supported us with their spacecraft faring our astronauts, including me, to the space station and also supplies.
Leroy Chiao
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I attended a big human space flight conference in Beijing and I was going as myself. And really, there weren't any NASA astronauts there, I was the only so-called American Astronaut there. We had astronauts from most of the other countries, certainly from Russia, from France, from Japan, several other countries, but it was a little bit odd because here we are at an international gathering of a lot of astronauts and I'm talking about somewhere upwards of 30 or so astronauts, and I'm the only American. And I wasn't even there in an official capacity.
Leroy Chiao
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Astronauts are not superhuman. They lead ordinary lives and have varied personalities.
Buzz Aldrin
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The seven astronauts on board were accomplished women and men of great courage who put their extraordinary skills and knowledge to the service of humankind.
Jean Chretien
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The United States, Russia, and China are the only three countries in the world that can launch astronauts into space. Mostly in the U.S. you see some companies trying to launch private commercial people into space, but nobody's done it yet. The only private vehicle that's made it into space so far is Spaceship 1 in 2004, and that was an effort that was funded by one of the Microsoft founders, and he spent about $20 million to develop this spacecraft to do a sub-orbital flight. And it's not the same as going into orbit, but it was a huge first step.
Leroy Chiao
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I think there would be no shortage of applicants to the government astronaut corps to be settlers on the planet Mars. And I think this would be very inspiring.
Buzz Aldrin
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What are you going to do with astronauts who first reach the surface of Mars and then turn around and rocket back home-ward? What are they going to do, write their memoirs? Would they go again? Having them repeat the voyage, in my view, is dim-witted. Why don't they stay there on Mars?
Buzz Aldrin
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To commemorate the 40th anniversary of the moon landing, the three astronauts from Apollo 11 visited the White House. Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin were allowed to set foot inside the White House, while Michael Collins was forced to drive around in circles outside.
Conan O'Brien
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At no time, when the astronauts were in space were they alone, there was a constant surveillance by UFOs.
Scott Carpenter
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I think that over the years, whether they want to admit it or not, people have to admit that the women astronauts have performed just as well as the men astronauts.
Shannon Lucid
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To send humans back to the moon would not be advancing. It would be more than 50 years after the first moon landing when we got there, and we'd probably be welcomed by the Chinese. But we should return to the moon without astronauts and build, with robots, an international lunar base, so that we know how to build a base on Mars robotically.
Buzz Aldrin
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Sometimes, if I am not in a situation where the truth matters, I take the liberty of becoming playful and making up a profession. I’ve said I’m a chef. I’ve said I train astronauts. I’ve said I’m a fisherman. One time I said I was a spy. The person I was talking to became instantly animated and started peppering me with so many questions it would have been easier if I had simply told the truth. As it was, I had to fabricate a wild set of statements based on my uninformed speculation about what a spy does! But such is the mind of a person who has ADHD—in this case, me—that making up stories comes quite naturally. Some people call this lying, but when there is no harm done, I call it playing.
Edward Hallowell
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I think most astronauts are not risk takers. We take calculated risks for something that we think is worthwhile.
Michael J. Massimino
