Spacecraft Propulsion Quotes

I was up in the Van Allen Belt. This is factual. And I don't know why they're scared of the Van Allen Belt, because it's simply hot. You'd be surprised how warm space is…. The DC-8 airplane is the exact copy of the space plane of that day. No difference, except the DC-8 had fans, propellers on it, and the space plane didn't.

They all knew the mothership was coming, they all knew it was a flying saucer, they all knew it came from another planet through the vacuum of space. And so what do they do, to the left of that monument? They set up runway lights. And I'm thinking, if you could travel through the vacuum of space, you don't need runway lights. Runway lights are if you're using air for lift. Aliens would not need air for lift.

Moving eight miles a minute for months at a time.

If we're going to have any chance of sending stuff to other star systems, we need to be laser-focused on becoming a multi-planet civilisation.

It's easy to reckon that the oomph to hurl even a Smart Car-size spacecraft to another star at, say, 20 percent the speed of light (and land it when it arrives) is the energy contained in 50 billion gallons of gasoline. The tank's not big enough.

Do we really need these big, gigantic, heavy rockets? What if we launch a rocket that's empty, and its sole purpose is to act as a source of fuel on the Moon? Who should build that? Well, I think the U.S. should build that.

Astronautics, strictly speaking, will be concerned with voyages to other stars. Remarkably enough, to achieve such feats, we might not even have to leave the earth. It would suffice to accelerate the sun itself to a very high speed and let it drag all its planets with it.

What's aero braking? That's a way to use the gravity and upper atmosphere of Earth to sling shot a ship out either deeper into space, or slow it down to be 'captured' by Earth's gravity.

Am I willing to go to Mars? Yes, but I'm not willing to spend nine months getting there, then wait 18 more months until the planets align to come home.

Two things that matter to me. Emotional resonance and rocket launchers.

You need propellants to accelerate toward Mars, then to decelerate at Mars, again to re-accelerate from Mars to Earth, and finally to decelerate back at Earth. Accordingly, the mass of these required propellants, in short, drives our need for innovative launch vehicles.

The factor most ignored in discussing interstellar flight is the kinetic energy that must be invested in the ship to make its tons of matter move at a substantial fraction of the speed of light.

A hybrid human-robot mission to investigate an asteroid affords a realistic opportunity to demonstrate new technological capabilities for future deep-space travel and to test spacecraft for long-duration spaceflight.

Today, we cannot produce machines that fly the same as UFOs do. They are flying by means of artificial fields of Gravity. This would explain the sudden changes of directions. This hypothesis would also explain the piling-up of these discs into a cylindrical or cigar-shaped mothership upon leaving the Earth.

I don't think there is much value in trying to use the moon as a base to go to Mars. That's going into one gravity belt and having to get back out of it again. And the moon doesn't have a lot to offer as a resource base.

Exploring Mars is a far different venture from Apollo expeditions to the moon; it necessitates leaving our home planet on lengthy missions with a constrained return capability.

Human uploads have such a natural advantage over present-day people in the environment of space, it's exceedingly unlikely flesh-and-blood beings will ever engage in interstellar travel.

I think that the first men to land on Pluto are going to make some very astonishing discoveries. But I am also sure that they will never go there in rockets. They will have to make the immense trip by some more powerful means - like the anti-gravitational drive.

It would take an extremely large spacecraft to deflect a large asteroid that would be headed directly for the Earth.

Mars is a long ways away. The moon is only 240,000 miles, but Mars is in the millions. It's too risky without spending more time going to the moon.

The rockets light! The shuttle leaps off the launch pad in a cloud of steam and a trail of fire.

If you're going to go to the moon, you don't shoot the rocket right at the moon. You have to go at it obliquely.