I was with Tom Wolfe at the launch of Apollo 17, which led him to 'The Right Stuff.'
I've been approached to do some things with astronauts and the preparation that astronauts go through.
I’m struck again by the irony that spaceflight-conceived in the cauldron of nationalist rivalries and hatreds-brings with it a stunning transnational vision. You spend even a little time contemplating the Earth from orbit and the most deeply engrained nationalisms begin to erode. They seem the squabbles of mites on a plum.
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.
There is a potential to be a big explosion of what spaceflight is gonna mean to just an everyday person in the near future. I think it's very hopeful for our young people: all the exciting things that they could be doing in the future relative to space and space exploration.
A zero-gravity flight is a first step toward space travel.
Spaceflight is a tricky business. It is definitely difficult, and I think we forget that sometime.
I personally think going to Mars, if it takes two years or two and a half years, that's doable. Certainly, the first people who go there, that's going to be a big motivator, being first getting to Mars.
Spaceflight will never tolerate carelessness, incapacity, and neglect.
Aviation - and space travel, in particular - have always been especially captivating.
I'd love to go back to space, I don't know any astronaut who doesn't want to.
I definitely knew how to fly. That's something you don't forget. One spaceship is pretty much like another when it comes to flying.
There's no question that all the generations got excited about the first flights, with Kennedy's inspiration to go to the moon, leaving the planet for the first time, and fortunately coming back.
I was motivated to improve the U.S. strategy of going back to the moon in 1985. That's a long time ago. Going back to the moon would be a great achievement for tourism adventure flights.
Glenn's 1962 Mercury flight was fraught with dramatics, from his 'Zero G and I feel fine!' exultation upon entering orbit to his reentry with what was feared was a faulty heat shield. After he safely splashed down, the nation erupted with applause and gratitude not seen since Charles Lindbergh's solo flight across the Atlantic.
America can take man to the moon, and America can take men to Mars - and beyond.
I'm not in favor of manned spaceflight, because I don't see that it goes anywhere.
My desire to contribute to the spaceflight team as we move forward in our exploration of space has only increased over the years.
Spaceflight, especially in the Mercury spacecraft, clearly wasn't going to be much like flying an airplane.
We certainly would not be here, living and working on the International Space Station without the commitment and dedication of all the folks who worked the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo Programs as well as the Russian Space Program.
Eventually we're going to go to Mars, and I firmly believe the first person that sets foot on Mars will get there on a Boeing rocket.
But every crew that makes it to orbit is lucky. Spaceflight's not easy.
I'm Chinese-American, of course, and so it's very interesting to see China actually launch their own astronauts, becoming the third nation, following the United States and Russia, to do so.
When you talk to crews that went to Mir or have gone up to International Space Station, they say that you go through different phases of adaptation or getting used to the space environment.
Spaceflight is nothing less than the exterior metaphor for the shamanic voyage. In other words, in our terms, the hallucinogenic experience. This is the way engineers get high. They go to the moon!
