Barack Obama Quotes

I think a Moon base is not necessary to get to Mars, but I think it will be helpful. It would give you a chance to develop and mature some systems; long duration, deep space stuff; and you're close enough to get some help, via radio from Earth.

Chemical propulsion is obsolete to go anywhere other than the moon. Three days - that's acceptable. But for Mars, we need propulsion technologies to get us there in, say, 60 days - then spend whatever length of time we want to spend and return when we want to come home.

My key aim is to get man on the surface of Mars by the mid-2030s.

Every day, we get a little bit closer to the kind of expertise and the kind of experience we're going to need to go there. I'd love to be the guy walking on Mars.

When I was a kid, I was reliably informed that we'd have gone to Mars by 1985, and of course it's 2012, and we're still really no closer to a human expedition to Mars, but that shouldn't detract from the amazing achievements that are being done on a day-to-day basis by robotic envoys.

This year-in-space mission was a profound challenge for all involved, and it gave me a unique perspective and a lot of time to reflect on what my next step should be on our continued journey to help further our capabilities in space and on Earth.

By the year 2000 we will undoubtedly have a sizable operation on the Moon, we will have achieved a manned Mars landing and it's entirely possible we will have flown with men to the outer planets.

The future is about wings and wheels and new forms of space transportation, along with our deep-space ambition to set foot on another world in our solar system: Mars. I firmly believe we will establish permanence on that planet. And in reaching for that goal, we can cultivate commercial development of the moon, the asteroid belt, the Red Planet itself and beyond.

If humanity doesn't land on Mars in my lifetime, I would be very disappointed.

'The Martian' may be fiction, but at NASA, we are working to make it a reality.

During my 8 years as chairman, I had the privilege to peer into the future to see dynamic citizen astronauts returning to and from the heavens which we can expect in the future.

The day Apollo 11 landed, I knew men would walk on Mars in my lifetime. I'm no longer nearly so sure. The last budget put forward in Canada contained not a penny for Mars.

Many of us in Congress have been calling on the Administration to articulate a bold mission for NASA. It seems that the President is answering that call. I wholeheartedly support his vision for going back to the moon, and from there to worlds beyond.

We're not going to get humans to Mars until at least the mid-2030s, and the world is going to change by then.

There's nothing I would like more than to watch a manned Mars landing.

The Space Program is an investment of the nation’s future…. Humans will not be confined to this planet forever.

We must become a space-faring nation.

I think we know how to do Mars.

If I were part of Gaganyaan, I could have been sure that for the next few years, there would have been a second space mission and a third space mission.

The space program needs a goal, and the goal should be humans to Mars.

I think the International Space Station is providing a key bridge from us living on Earth to going somewhere into deep space.

Of course, I was completely enthralled by the space program as a kid - particularly Apollo 11 - and was glued to the television like most of the world. Then I stopped thinking about it too much. I was a little disappointed that they weren't going on to Mars at the time, but I didn't think much of it. I was more interested in becoming a director at that point in my life and falling in love, things like that.

President Bush announced we're going to Mars, which means he's given up on Earth.

We will eventually build space science labs and hotels, prodding the capability for missions beyond the orbit of the Earth. Our space-hotel guests will be able to take breath-taking excursions, flying a couple of hundred feet above the Moon's surface in small two-man spaceships. In time, we will launch missions to Mars and beyond.

My expertise is the space program and what it should be in the future based on my experience of looking at the transitions that we've made between pre-Sputnik days and getting to the moon.