Alan Shepard Quotes

You get to a certain moment where you realize all those humans who landed on the moon did so in between Chris [Nolan] being born and me being born and no one had gone back since, all these Super-8 films we grew up watching of rocket launches, you get to a certain age and you realize all the speeches about going back, they're speeches, there's no money there, we're not going back.

Landing on the moon was a dream that millions of kids have had for hundreds of years.

Here men from the planet Earth first set foot upon the Moon. July 1969 AD. We came in peace for all mankind.

Sending a couple of guys to the Moon and bringing them back safely? That's a stunt! That's not historic.

We've gotta reinvest in space travel. We should've never left the moon.

We got to the moon.

I believed that once we got to the Moon, there was no stopping us. But in fact, we did stop.

What fiction could match - in drama or suspense - man's first walk on the Moon?

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.

First I believe that this Nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon.

I think a lot of the American people feel more than a little disappointed that the high-water mark for human exploration was 1969. The dream of human space travel has almost died for a lot of people.

The biggest benefit of Apollo was the inspiration it gave to a growing generation to get into science and aerospace.

Most people never believed in the real possibility of going to the moon, and neither did I until I was in my twenties.

Apollo 11 was the movie premiere of moon landings, with Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin. Neil was a bit of a mystic, but also a taciturn guy from what I can tell. He really saw the moon as looking like the American high desert. He wasn't someone who dealt in metaphors.

Astronauts have been stuck in low-Earth orbit, boldly going nowhere. American attempts to kick-start a new phase of lunar exploration have stalled amid the realisation that NASA's budget is too small for the job.

I was only a hero by default. The flights were few and far between. There weren't that many astronauts. The moon flights were so interesting and exciting.

Here I am at the turn of the millennium and I'm still the last man to have walked on the moon, somewhat disappointing. It says more about what we have not done than about what we have done.

You talk about American technocracy and you find men on the moon, not once, but several times... and safely home again.

America can take man to the moon, and America can take men to Mars - and beyond.

I'd love to go back to space, I don't know any astronaut who doesn't want to.

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

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

I want manned spaceflight, not just back to the Moon, but beyond that. And I want my daughters and my son to have their own July 20, 1969, to remember. Apollo 11 didn't give us wings; it only showed us how far the wings we had would take us.

For the new century, back to the moon, back to the future and this time back to stay. And then a journey into tomorrow, a journey to another planet, a manned mission to Mars.

That's one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind.