David Autor Quotes

After the Challenger accident, NASA put in a lot of time to improve the safety of the space shuttle to fix the things that had gone wrong.

Chernobyl happened in April of 1986. A few months earlier, in January 1986, the Challenger space shuttle exploded. It did not have the impact on the environment and the amount of lives that Chernobyl did, but it was the result of the same exact problem: a failure of a lot of people and institutions over a long period of time.

On a standard space shuttle crew, two of the astronauts have a test pilot background - the commander and the pilot.

As we reflect back upon the tragic loss of Challenger and her brave crew of heroes who were aboard that fateful day, I am reminded that they truly represented the best of us, as they climbed aloft on a plume of propellant gasses, reaching for the stars, to inspire us who were Earthbound.

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

We have never lost a crew member on the space station, but of course, the Columbia accident. I was - I'd already been an astronaut for a decade when the crew of Columbia was killed. And I went through test pilot school. Rick Husband and I were out at Edwards at test pilot school together. He was the commander of Columbia.

No, I think most astronauts recognize that the space shuttle program is very high-risk, and are prepared for accidents.

After the loss of Columbia a couple of years ago, I think we were reminded of the risk. All of us, though, have always known that the Space Shuttle is a very risky vehicle, much more risky than even flying airplanes in combat.

I witnessed the building of the Space Shuttle Columbia, the first orbiter to be launched into space.

The space shuttle is a better and safer rocket than it was before the Challenger accident.

Not until the space shuttle started flying did NASA concede that some astronauts didn't have to be fast-jet pilots. And at that point, sure enough, women started becoming astronauts.

In 1983, NASA invited Canada to fly three payload specialists, in part because we had contributed the robotic arm that is used on the shuttle.

After the Shuttle checks out on its two upcoming flights, it will be ready to take larger components up to the International Space Station later this fall.

I am deeply grieved by the loss of the crew of Columbia. I express my sincere condolences to the families and friends of the astronauts. I believe that their names will remain as the bright sparkling stars in the universe and will light the way for those who will follow them on the difficult roads of space exploration.

In the astronaut business - the shuttle is a very complicated vehicle; it's the most complicated flying machine ever built. And in the astronaut business, we have a saying, which is, 'There is no problem so bad that you can't make it worse.'

The United States ended the space shuttle program in 2011, after the ISS was complete. We gave up a national treasure forever.

The Space Shuttle was a great machine. Without it, we would not have been able to build the International Space Station because the parts and modules were delivered by Shuttle crews.

The first news event I understood as a small child was the loss of the space shuttle Challenger, which President Reagan eloquently mourned from the Oval that evening.

Nothing would make me happier if people got curious enough to actually go online to and start looking and researching the Apollo 1 fire... That would be amazing to me if people would actually go through the trouble to figure that stuff out.

I wanted to do '2001' from Hal's perspective. What it finally ended up being was 'Final Destination' in space.

You can picture pretty easily if there were a paying passenger aboard a rocket that failed, like Challenger failed. Certainly it would be a tragedy, and a tragedy for the company. They would have a hard time recovering from it.

The crew of the space shuttle Challenger honored us by the manner in which they lived their lives.

The Space Shuttle is the most effective device known to man for destroying dollar bills.

Fate has ordained that the men who went to the moon to explore in peace will stay on the moon to rest in peace. These brave men, Neil Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin, know that there is no hope for their recovery. But they also know that there is hope for mankind in their sacrifice.

The crew of the shuttle Columbia did not return safely to Earth; yet we can pray that all are safely home.