Aerospace Industry Quotes

As the journalists of the time phased it, this was the epoch of the Leap into the Air. The new atomic aeroplane became indeed a mania; everyone of means was frantic to possess a thing so controllable, so secure and so free from the dust and danger of the road, and in France in the year 1943 thirty thousand of these new aeroplanes were manufactured and licensed, and soared humming softly into the sky.

I'm urging NASA to foster the development of what I call 'runway landers.' No, that's not the name of a high stakes gambler from Vegas. It's a type of spacecraft that flies to orbit like the retiring Shuttles but then glides to a landing like an airplane on a runway. Just like the Shuttles do.

At the end of October 4 in 1957, when I was coming back from sea duty in the South Pacific, Sputnik went up. I realized that humans would be right behind robot aircraft or spacecraft even though I really had no plans of being in aviation or a professional aviator and certainly not in the military.

Science fiction was rocket-mad for about 40 years until aerospace hit a brick wall about 1970. I would not write off space colonisation or exploration completely, but we are profoundly ill adapted for going boldly into outer space.

In 2003, the value of Airbus's orders was more than twice as much as Boeing's.

I firmly believe a rising tide lifts all boats. I think having Airbus only grows and brings more attention to Alabama's entire aerospace and aviation industry. Listen, my goal is to bring good-paying jobs to our state and our region, regardless of what the company may be.

Boeing is a United States icon.

I was interested in aerospace and flying, and the U.S. is really the best place in the world for flying.

To fly or not to fly, that's the question.

As long as humanity has been human, it has looked toward the heavens and dreamed that some day, some way, there would be giant federal contracts involved.

The Americans cannot build aeroplanes. They are very good at refrigerators and razor blades.

The U.S. is looking to India as more then just a marketplace for our defense products, but as a technology, aerospace and strategic partner for our future endeavors.

The way I see it, what is going to come out of the moon activities is a respect for U.S. leadership.

Growing up in the 1960s, I can't remember a time when I wasn't fascinated by airplanes and rockets.

These subsidies from four European governments, which include aircraft launch assistance, capital injections, debt forgiveness, have enabled Airbus to develop and range market airliners well below cost.

In August 1994, I was invited to have dinner with House Minority Whip Newt Gingrich. At that time, I was a senior engineer working for Martin Marietta Astronautics in Denver, where I had been responsible for inventing a new plan called 'Mars Direct.'

We need to stop defining Boeing's future based on a single program or two programs, and we have been doing that with the fighter story. It doesn't mean it was wrong or right; I just don't think it represents the great diversity of the Boeing Defense portfolio.

Congress came to see NASA primarily as a jobs program, not an exploratory agency.

I have always loved aeroplanes and spacecraft and the design element.

Some people believe the U.S. can't compete in the design and manufacture of sophisticated products. I think we absolutely can if we pull together. We have shown that we can do that in commercial airplanes, and we can absolutely prove that we can do that in automobiles.

I felt very comfortable moving from aerospace to automobiles.

I stayed in the astronaut program until 1993. People ask me why I left. I thought I had a lot of things to contribute that would be difficult to do if I stayed. I thought I could have a stronger voice as an advocate for space exploration. So I ended up starting my own technology consulting company.

Boeing, LockMart, and hundreds of other companies, large and small, work in the space business, and they also create new techniques and technology; but they'd be nowhere if NASA and the Department of Defense hadn't shown the way by funding the first big rockets and satellites.

Boeing started a new line for their 787 Dreamliner, creating 1,000 new jobs in South Carolina, giving our state a shot in the arm when we truly needed it.