Charles Duke Quotes

Very little useful science got done in the space station. NASA never did the experiments needed to develop the technologies required for a genuine interplanetary expedition: centrifugal gravity to avoid bodily harm and a truly closed biosphere.

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.

As the scene of life would be more the cold emptiness of space than the warm, dense atmosphere of planets, the advantage of containing no organic material at all, so as to be independent of both these conditions, would be increasingly felt.

There should be an international lunar base. That is certainly doable.

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.

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.

Asteroids are deep-space bodies orbiting the Sun, not the Earth, and traveling to one would mean sending humans into solar orbit for the very first time. Facing those challenges of radiation, navigation and life support on a months-long trip millions of miles from home would be a perfect learning journey before a Mars trip.

Research into manned spaceflight is shifting from low-Earth orbit to destinations much further away, like Mars and the asteroid belt. But society will have to invent many new technologies before it can plausibly send people to those distances.

We're not up here visiting space, we're up here living in space.

The space program is a peaceful project. The next door is opening. We have to go farther into space. But, before that, we need to develop far more improved nutrition and more advanced spacecraft.

We need to move off the planet. And Mars is the next best place.

Well, the coolest thing I have seen so far, in terms of, like, me being an astronaut and seeing something unusual, was the rendezvous, the docking of a Progress spaceship.

By 1973, we had a space station, the Skylab, and we had multiple probes going up to planets. So, all this wonderful stuff happened in 10 to 15 years. About that time, there should have been enormous initiatives to make it affordable for people to fly in space, not just a handful of trained NASA astronauts and Russian cosmonauts.

One of the major problems with long-term deep space human flight is the requirement for radiation shielding.

We should not have assumed that a political space station could be built.

I think we have a good chance of surviving long enough to colonize the solar system.

Canada has made a strong commitment as a partner in the International Space Station and, like the other partners, wishes to see the assembly of this unique orbiting laboratory continue.

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

I don't think the space station will ever do anything for exploration. Putting people up there for a year or more is the only way you will get anywhere near the exploration concept.

I've been approached to do some things with astronauts and the preparation that astronauts go through.

Putting seven people in orbit should not cost more than flying a commercial jet around Earth.

Back in the days of Apollo, sending humans to the moon was the only viable way to get the scientific data we wanted. But now, with our computer and robotics technology, there's very little an astronaut can do on Mars that a well-designed rover can't.

We must become a space-faring nation.

Not only shall we be able to cruise in space, …

The time will come when we permit more people in space.