Astronaut Quotes - Page 4

• It so happened that my goals kind of matched my career progression toward becoming an astronaut.

  John L. Phillips

  Careers, Goal, Becoming

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• I had done everything I could do as an astronaut, and we have a long line of inexperienced astronauts waiting for their first missions, and so my role really should be to step aside and help them prepare for their missions, rather than to try to get another mission.

  Leroy Chiao

  Long, Waiting, Trying

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• Some astronauts describe the routine flushing of urine into space, where the freezing temperatures turn the droplets into a cloud of bright, drifting crystals, as being among the most amazing sights they saw on an entire voyage.

  Gene Cernan

  Space, Clouds, Sight

  "This much I know". Interview with Robin McKie, www.theguardian.com. June 15, 2002.

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• Then there was the challenge to keep doing better and better, to fly the best test flight that anybody had ever flown. That led to my being recognized as one of the more experienced test pilots, and that led to the astronaut business.

  Alan Shepard

  Challenges, Pilots, Tests

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• I worked for some very good people who have helped me along the way and actually enabled me to have the opportunity to be selected to join the Astronaut Corps.

  Duane G. Carey

  Opportunity, People, Way

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• There is no one area of chemical engineering that specifically helped me in my career as an astronaut, it was more the general education in engineering. Also, it was a very difficult and rigorous course. So, it made me strong and resourceful.

  Leroy Chiao

  Strong, Engineering, Careers

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• I never made a career decision based solely on my desire to be an astronaut. I attended the Naval Academy because I wanted to be a Navy pilot. I majored in math because math had always come pretty easily to me and I liked it.

  John L. Phillips

  Math, Careers, Decision

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• I cannot join the space program and restart my life as an astronaut, but this opportunity to connect my abilities as an educator with my interests in history and space is a unique opportunity to fulfill my early fantasies.

  Christa McAuliffe

  Unique, Opportunity, Space

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• There weren't any astronauts until I was about 10. Yuri Gagarin went into space right around my 10th birthday.

  John L. Phillips

  Birthday, Space

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• I think that witnessing ecological problems visible from space is one of the new and essential roles of astronauts

  Philippe Perrin

  Thinking, Space, Essentials

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• The Earth was small, light blue, and so touchingly alone, our home that must be defended like a holy relic. The Earth was absolutely round. I believe I never knew what the word round meant until I saw Earth from space.

  Alexey Leonov

  Believe, Home, Light

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• 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.

  John F. Kennedy

  Believe, Moon, Men

  Special message to joint session of Congress on urgent national needs, 25 May 1961

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• Twenty-two astronauts were born in Ohio. What is it about your state that makes people want to flee the Earth?" - Stephen Colbert to Congresswoman Stephanie Tubbs Jones, "The Colbert Report," November 3, 2005

  Stephen Colbert

  Ohio, Two, People

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• If you believe that I'm a cop killer, you believe David Bowie is an astronaut.

  Ice T

  Believe, Killers, Cop

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• Space is our tool to take care of the world. From space, we know the Earth is fragile, and we can follow oil spills and forest fires, and monitor the environment and save it. The needs of remote communities and the needs of astronauts are similar. Canada is a country that is big and has a lot of people living in faraway places. Physicians in remote areas need to have contact with more senior colleagues. We depend on telehealth for advice, X-rays, labs. At the most simple technical level, space technology contributes to remote health care.

  David Saint-Jacques

  Senior, Country, Technology

  Source: www.macleans.ca

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• I had looked forward
  to old age as a time
  of quietness, a time to draw
  my horizons about me,
  to watch memories ripening
  in the sunlight of a walled garden.
  But there is the void
  over my head and the distance
  within that the tireless signals
  come from. And astronaut
  on impossible journeys
  to the far side of the self
  I return with messages
  I cannot decipher.

  R. S. Thomas

  Memories, Distance, Journey

  "Between Here and Now" by R. S. Thomas, ("The New Mariner", p. 99), 1981.

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• I see Earth! It is so beautiful.

  Yuri Gagarin

  Beautiful, Earth

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• My view of our planet was a glimpse of divinity.

  Edgar Mitchell

  Views, Space, Glimpse

  Edgar Mitchell (2009). “The Way of the Explorer: An Apollo Astronaut's Journey Through the Material and Mystical Worlds: Easyread Large Bold Edition”, p.454, ReadHowYouWant.com

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• Harriet Tubman was an astronaut, traversing the south to the north by navigating the stars.

  Sanford Biggers

  Stars, South

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• To become an astronaut, someone has to have a dream of his own to do something that he or she has always wanted to do, then commit himself to making that dream come true.

  Gene Cernan

  Dream, Wanted, Commit

  Live Chat, www.cnn.com. January 21, 1999.

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• Today, your cell phone has more computer power than all of NASA back in 1969, when it placed two astronauts on the moon. Video games, which consume enormous amounts of computer power to simulate 3-D situations, use more computer power than mainframe computers of the previous decade. The Sony PlayStation of today, which costs $300, has the power of a military supercomputer of 1997, which cost millions of dollars.

  Michio Kaku

  Military, Moon, Phones

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• 'Love' has that Kubrick tonality to it, but this is not a Stanley Kubrick movie - there will never be another. At the same time, 'Love' has a modern feel. For example: In one scene, these astronauts go through a wormhole sequence, and you feel like you're being slapped around inside your head by a sonic boom.

  Tom DeLonge

  Example, Like You, Time Love

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• Any astronaut can tell you you've got to do everything you can to learn about your life support system and then do everything you can to take care of it.

  Sylvia Earle

  Support Systems, Care, Support

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• I don't particularly care about photographic authorship. Whether an astronaut who doesn't even have a viewfinder makes an image, a robotic camera, a military photographer, or Mike Light really doesn't matter. What matters is the context of the final photograph and the meaning it generates within that context.

  Michael Light

  Military, What Matters, Light

  "100 Suns and the Nuclear Sublime". Interview with Robert Hirsch, lightresearch.net. July / August 2005.

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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

  Military, Government, Should Have

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