Orbit Quotes

• Words have no single fixed meaning. Like wayward electrons, they can spin away from their initial orbits and enter a wider magnetic field. No one owns them or has a proprietary right to dictate how they will be used.

  David Lehman

  Fields, Used, Fixed

  David Lehman (1992). “Signs of the Times: Deconstruction and the Fall of Paul de Man”, Poseidon Pr

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• The orbit of human vision has widened and art has annexed fresh territories that were formerly denied to it.

  Max Bill

  Art, Vision, Territory

  Max Bill, James N. Wood (1974). “Max Bill”

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• NASA will send up a big sun shade that will be in orbit between the earth and sun and deflect 2 or 3 percent of the sunshine back into space. It would be cheaper than the international space station.

  James Lovelock

  Sunshine, Space, Earth

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• It seems to me, thinking of it, that there must be some universal plan which set in motion the orbiting of the electrons about the nucleus and the slower, more majestic orbit of the galaxies about one another to the very edge of space

  Clifford D. Simak

  Thinking, Space, Nucleus

  Clifford D. Simak (2015). “A Choice of Gods”, p.101, Open Road Media

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• I always try to be alert to the potential for repetition, for a decaying orbit with regard to my use of technique, etc.

  Jeff VanderMeer

  Trying, Etc, Technique

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• Then if your movie clicks with real audiences, you'll be sucked into some sort of Hollywood orbit. It's a devil of a place where the only religion that really counts is box office.

  Yahoo Serious

  Real, Office, Devil

  Biography/Personal Quotes, www.imdb.com.

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

  Sally Ride

  Hands, Space, Robots

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• What ordinary men are directly aware of and what they try to do are bounded by the private orbits in which they live; their visions and their powers are limited.

  C. Wright Mills

  Men, Vision, Trying

  C. Wright Mills (2000). “The Sociological Imagination”, p.3, Oxford University Press

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• Dear Iranian nation, your children have placed the first indigenous satellite into orbit.

  Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

  Children, Moon, Firsts

  The Rachel Maddow Show, www.msnbc.com. March 02, 2009.

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• One orbit, with a radius of 42,000 kilometers, has a period of exactly 24 hours. A body in such an orbit, if its plane coincided with that of the Earth's equator, would revolve with the Earth and would thus be stationary above the same spot on the planet. It would remain fixed in the sky of a whole hemisphere ... [to] provide coverage to half the globe, and for a world service three would be required, though more could be readily utilized. (1945) [Predidicting geosynchronous communication satellites]

  Arthur C. Clarke

  Communication, Science, Sky

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• Books are the best of things if well used; if abused, among the worst. They are good for nothing but to inspire. I had better never see a book than be warped by its attraction clean out of my own orbit, and made a satellite instead of a system.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  War, Book, Inspire

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2015). “Essays”, p.10, Xist Publishing

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• Using material ferried up by rockets, it would be possible to construct a "space station" in ... orbit. The station could be provided with living quarters, laboratories and everything needed for the comfort of its crew, who would be relieved and provisioned by a regular rocket service. (1945)

  Arthur C. Clarke

  Science, Space, Comfort

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• Now, I've never flown in space; but the folks who have say that on landing day, you know, you've just spent maybe a week and a half, sometimes two weeks in orbit and you're used to the things happening slowly in space.

  Duane G. Carey

  Two, Space, Half

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• After assembly complete, when we have a larger crew on orbit, a more complex vehicle, more laboratories and more robot arms, maybe we'll have room for specialists. But right now we don't.

  John L. Phillips

  Robots, Arms, Rooms

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• I don't go along with going to Moon first to build a launch pad to go to Mars. We should go to Mars from Earth orbit. We have already been to the Moon; we've already practiced.

  Wally Schirra

  Moon, Mars, Earth

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• It will be possible in a few more years to build radio controlled rockets which can be steered into such orbits beyond the limits of the atmosphere and left to broadcast scientific information back to the Earth. A little later, manned rockets will be able to make similar flights with sufficient excess power to break the orbit and return to Earth. (1945) [Predicting communications satellites.]

  Arthur C. Clarke

  Communication, Science, Years

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• We launch when we're kind of in the same orbit that they are in terms of being matched up in inclination in space, and we're just in a little different altitude.

  Linda M. Godwin

  Space, Different, Littles

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• I am proud to find, from two astronomical observations, that Chapel Hill lies right in the orbit of Jupiter and his satellites, and that the period of his revolution is about twelve years.

  William Hooper

  Lying, Years, Two

  William Hooper (1859). “Fifty Years Since: An Address, Delivered Before the Alumni of the University of North Carolina, on the 7th of June, 1859, (being the Day Before the Annual Commencement.)”, p.5

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• We were only on orbit a little over two days so we had no adverse effects from being weightless...

  Robert Crippen

  Adverse Effects, Two, Littles

  "STS-1 25th Anniversary Interview with Bob Crippen". Interview with George Diller, www.nasa.gov. April 12, 2006.

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• Things are going very smoothly. As expected, there are some minor glitches, and the eight minutes that it took us to get to orbit, we trained months and months for, and didn't have to use any of that preparation, other than being aware and ready.

  Laurel Clark

  Eight, Preparation, Glitches

  "Shuttle crew takes break for CNN interview". Interview with Miles O'Brien, www.cnn.com. January 20, 2003.

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• I simply haven't the nerve to imagine a being, a force, a cause which keeps the planets revolving in their orbits and then suddenly stops in order to give me a bicycle with three speeds.

  Quentin Crisp

  God, Order, Giving

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• My work at MIT had focused on what we could build in space once we had inexpensive space transportation and industrial facilities in orbit. And this led to various sorts of work in space development.

  K. Eric Drexler

  Space, Mit, Development

  Foresight Interview, foresight.org.

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• Looking down at the Earth, you started to pick up a sense of speed much more than I had noticed on orbit.

  Robert Crippen

  Earth, Speed, Looking Down

  "STS-1 25th Anniversary Interview with Bob Crippen". Interview with George Diller, www.nasa.gov. April 12, 2006.

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• Therefore, in the course of the work I have followed this plan: I describe in the first book all the positions of the orbits together with the movements which I ascribe to the Earth, in order that this book might contain, as it were, the general scheme of the universe.

  Nicolaus Copernicus

  Book, Order, Together

  William Caxton, Jean Calvin, Nicolaus Copernicus, John Knox, Edmund Spenser (1938). “Prefaces and prologues to famous books”

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• You're going very fast when you're on orbit, going around the world once every hour and a half.

  Robert Crippen

  Half, World, Hours

  "STS-1 25th Anniversary Interview with Bob Crippen". Interview with George Diller, www.nasa.gov. April 12, 2006.

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