Astronaut Quotes

“You develop an instant global consciousness, a people orientation, an intense dissatisfaction with the state of the world, and a compulsion to do something about it. From out there on the moon, international politics look so petty. You want to grab a politician by the scruff of the neck and drag him a quarter of a million miles out and say, ‘Look at that, you son of a bitch.”
― Edgar Mitchell

“Did you know that in space it's very, very cold? And there's no oxygen? And if an astronaut fell out of a shuttle without his suit he'd die right away?"

I'm a fast learner. "But that would never happen. Because astronauts are really, really careful."

George gives me a smile, the same dazzling sweet smile as his big brother, although at this point, with green teeth. "I might marry you," he allows. "Do you want a big family?”
― Huntley Fitzpatrick, My Life Next Door

“It suddenly struck me that that tiny pea, pretty and blue, was the Earth. I put up my thumb and shut one eye, and my thumb blotted out the planet Earth. I didn't feel like a giant. I felt very, very small.”
― Neil Armstrong

“Astronauts are inherently insane. And really noble.”
― Andy Weir, The Martian

“I looked and looked but I didn't see God.

[Speaking about, in 1961, becoming the first human to enter space.]”
― Yuri Gagarin

“Earth is a small town with many neighborhoods in a very big universe.”
― Ron Garan, The Orbital Perspective: Lessons in Seeing the Big Picture from a Journey of 71 Million Miles

“Yes, there have been ET visitations. There have been crashed craft. There have been material and bodies recovered. There has been a certain amount of reverse engineering that has allowed some of these craft, or some components, to be duplicated. And there is some group of people that may or may not be associated with government at this point that have this knowledge. They have been attempting to conceal this knowledge. People in high level government have very little, if any, valid information about this. It has been the subject of disinformation in order to deflect attention and create confusion so the truth doesn’t come out. ”
― Edgar D. Mitchell, The Way of the Explorer: An Apollo Astronaut's Journey Through the Material and Mystical Worlds

“If we adopt the same collaborative mindset and practices that got to the moon and back, and that built the International Space Station, we can alleviate poverty—and do much more.”
― Ron Garan, The Orbital Perspective: Lessons in Seeing the Big Picture from a Journey of 71 Million Miles

“This was exactly what I experienced in space: immense gratitude for the opportunity to see Earth from this vantage, and for the gift of the planet we've been given.”
― Ron Garan, The Orbital Perspective: Lessons in Seeing the Big Picture from a Journey of 71 Million Miles

“At this point I thought 'We made it,' by which I meant 'We survived.' I also was acutely aware that my childhood dream of flying into space had just come true.”
― Ron Garan, The Orbital Perspective: Lessons in Seeing the Big Picture from a Journey of 71 Million Miles

“An astronaut cannot be suspended in space and not have God in his mind and his heart.”
― Yuri Gagarin

“Many people at that time thought that physics wasn't a good subject for women to study. They thought women couldn't handle it, and some people at Stanford agreed. One male professor is said to have stood up and declared, "What are these girls doing here? You are taking jobs away from men!" But Sally persisted, because she knew what she wanted. She had been raised to believe she could do anything a man could do.”
― Atia Abawi, She Persisted: Sally Ride

“Too much space to dream,
Too little time to explore!
Cosmos needs us to explore more into the vast,
Maybe that's why the space-time is slower than the earth.”
― paul sachudhanandam

“Of course, Apollo was the god who carried the fiery sun across the sky in a chariot. But beyond that, how would you carry fire? Carefully, that's how, with lots of planning and at considerable risk. It is a delicate cargo, as valuable as moon rocks, and the carrier must always be on his toes lest it spill. I carried the fire for six years, and now I would like to tell you about it, simply and directly as a test pilot must, for the trip deserves the telling.”
― michael collins, Carrying the Fire: An Astronaut's Journey

“After an orange cloud — formed as a result of a dust storm over the Sahara and caught up by air currents — reached the Philippines and settled there with rain, I understood that we are all sailing in the same boat.”
― Vladimir Kovalyov

“Every time I see a USA rocket launch, I am reminded of the millions of disabled people that were denied their disability benefits in order to fund it.”
― Steven Magee

“For a test pilot the right stuff in the prayer department was not “Please, God, don’t let me blow up.” No, the supplication at such a moment was “Please, dear God, don’t let me fuck up.”
― Tom Wolfe, The Right Stuff

“Things aren't scary. People are scared.”
― Chris Hadfield

“Artists are low key astronauts.
Instead of going to the moon, they sit back in their studio and make the moon.”
― Michael Bassey Johnson, Song of a Nature Lover

“As I mentioned, it's been a long, boring drive. And I'm still on the outward leg. But hey, I'm an astronaut. Long-ass trips are my business.”
― Andy Weir, The Martian

“for every man who has ever lived, in this Universe there shines a star”
― Arthur C. Clarke, 2001: A Space Odyssey

“The existence of radiation from black holes seems to imply that gravitational collapse is not as final and irreversible as we once thought. If an astronaut falls into a black hole, its mass will increase, but eventually the energy equivalent of that extra mass will be returned to the universe in the form of radiation. Thus, in a sense, the astronaut will be 'recycled'. It would be a poor sort of immortality, however, because any personal concept of time for the astronaut would almost certainly come to an end as he was torn apart inside the black hole! Even the types of particles that were eventually emitted by the black hole would in general be different from those that made up the astronaut: the only feature of the astronaut that would survive would be his mass or energy.”
― Stephen Hawking, A Brief History of Time

“I was not surprised to find the poor were protesting the extravagant expense of the Moon landing back in the 1960’s.”
― Steven Magee

“Every time I see a USA rocket launch, I sit there thinking ‘What an obscene waste of money’.”
― Steven Magee

“If NASA was an airline, the FAA would have shut it down.”
― Steven Magee

“One does not replace a blown fuse-until one knows just why it has blown”
― Arthur C. Clarke, 2001: A Space Odyssey

“How to Train Your Head of State (The Sonnet)

We shall achieve more by
blasting politicians into space,
than by blasting satellites
to other planets.

They'll leave earth as warmongers,
and return as peacemakers.
They'll leave earth as mindless apes,
and return as mindful humans.

In the middle of absolute vacuum,
mind grows fond of the warmth of home.
Fondness born of existential crisis,
never subsides even after you return
to your comfort zone.

When you are floating in space untethered,
each speck of earthland is equally priceless.
Then you'll realize the fallacy of borders -
Nation-nonsense will fade,
and earth will be your primary sense.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Visvavatan: 100 Demilitarization Sonnets

“We shall achieve more by blasting politicians into space, than by blasting satellites to other planets. They'll leave earth as warmongers, and return as peacemakers. They'll leave earth as mindless apes, and return as mindful humans.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Visvavatan: 100 Demilitarization Sonnets

“...I read a quote from an astronaut. Paraphrasing, he said: "On our first day in space we were all pointing to our countries. On the second day in space we were all pointing to our continents. On the third day in space we were all pointing to our planet." How wonderful it would be if we could all have the experience of looking at our planet from a distance and seeing that all humans are a single species dependent on one another for our survival and continued evolution.”
― David Berceli, Trauma Releasing Exercises

“If that tight little spaceship was a happy home, then that astronaut’s real home must have been a sad one.
A happy home had nothing to do with three men in a bubble eating sawdust food and watching pencils floating in the air. A happy home meant having everyone under one roof, sitting around the table, eating a peach cobbler or pecan pie.”
― Rita Williams-Garcia, Gone Crazy in Alabama