Best 148 quotes in «space exploration quotes» category

Caleb shoved back from the table and stood to retreat to the kitchen. “No. Find another plan.” “There is no other plan. This isn’t even a plan, merely a nugget of an idea for the start of a plan that’s certain to fail and end in your deaths.

Caleb reached up and slid the tie out of her hair to let it fall free. “You were crazy to do it. But I love you because you’re wild and fearless, not in spite of it, and I know the price.” He sensed her cringe against him. “Which is?” “At random and unexpected times, you terrify the life out of me.

Children are turning themselves into monsters and, quite frankly, it is your fault. You initiated the creation of this technology, then you allowed it to slip through your fingers.” Miriam’s jaw tightened. “I disagree, but now is the least optimal time imaginable for assigning blame. People are dying, and I will not stand around debating semantics with you while they are.

Chaos that closely resembled panic awaited. Shuttles raced to the presumed safety of the planet below while fighters crisscrossed the perimeter of the station. Platoon-sized formations of frigates and several cruisers formed up and accelerated away. To where the approaching attackers were located? She didn’t give a damn what her mother said in public. This was a bona fide insurrection.

Do I think it was inherent nobility that brought us out here?” He shook his head. “Maybe. I don’t call it nobility, though. I think it’s our innate human need to champion the underdog. We are constant optimists. We’re the emotional descendents of the caveman who stood defiant in the front of the wooly mammoth. We rebuild cities at the base of Vesuvius, get back on the bicycle when we fall off, whack that hornet’s nest every spring. Humans cheer for the couldn’t be, believe in the shouldn’t be. We love causes; the harder, the more lost they are, the more we love them. Is that nobility?Maybe. Maybe it’s a pernicious genetic defect that makes our species susceptible to shared delusion. Whatever it is, it keeps life interesting.

Coordinates streamed into her mind while she yanked on her environment suit, foregoing every safety check she’d ever learned. ‘Alex, we will try to help him together, but it is far too dangerous—’ She grabbed the module she used to access the circuitry of the ship, bypassed Valkyrie and fired up the Caeles Prism. ‘Alex—’ She opened a wormhole in the middle of the cabin, set its exit point at the coordinates Valkyrie had provided, and ran through it.

Courage ins't about not feeling fear," R told the reporter. "It's about not letting it stop you.

Crushed sandstone sifted through Caleb’s fingers, insubstantial as dust. A breeze caught the debris mid-fall and spirited it away before it could join the ashes blanketing the ground. He stopped in the middle of what had once been a street, his arms pulled in at his sides, his fists balled in barely restrained fury.

Discovery first flew in 1984, the third orbiter to join the fleet. It was named for one of the ships commanded by Captain James Cook. Space shuttle Discovery is the most-flown orbiter; today will be its thirty-ninth and final launch. By the end of this mission, it will have flown a total of 365 days in space, making it the most well traveled spacecraft in history. Discovery was the first orbiter to carry a Russian cosmonaut and the first to visit the Russian space station Mir. On that flight, in 1995, Eileen Collins became the first woman to pilot an American spacecraft. Discovery flew twelve of the thirty-eight missions to assemble the International Space Station, and it was responsible for deploying the Hubble Space Telescope in 1990. This was perhaps the most far reaching accomplishment of the shuttle program, as Hubble has been called the most important telescope in history and one of the most significant scientific instruments ever invented. It has allowed astronomers to determine the age of the universe, postulate how galaxies form, and confirm the existence of dark energy, among many other discoveries. Astronomers and astrophysicists, when they are asked about the significance of Hubble, will simply say that it has rewritten the astronomy books. In the retirement process, Discovery will be the “vehicle of record,” being kept as intact as possible for future study. Discovery was the return-to-flight orbiter after the loss of Challenger and then again after the loss of Columbia. To me, this gives it a certain feeling of bravery and hope. ‘Don’t worry,’ Discovery seemed to tell us by gamely rolling her snow-white self out to the launchpad. 'Don’t worry, we can still dream of space. We can still leave the earth.’ And then she did.

Early SETI efforts were marked by overly optimistic estimates of the probable number of extraterrestrial civilizations in our galaxy. In light of new findings and insights, it seems appropriate to put excessive euphoria to rest and to take a more down-to-earth view. Earth may be more special, and intelligence much rarer, in the universe than previously thought. Skeptical Inquirer Volume 30.3, May / June 2006

Don’t talk. Don’t sputter out a solitary protest or it will be your last. Take me to them.” “Who the f**k are you?” He palmed the man’s forehead and slammed his skull against the wall. “I said don’t talk, and you want to do as I say. I’m the one thing monsters like you and your kind fear. I’m what haunts your nightmares and hunts you in the darkness.

Earth is the cradle of humanity, but one cannot live in a cradle forever.

Evening had turned the sky a deep persimmon. The remaining sunlight enriched the colors of the ubiquitous flowers and foliage to even greater vibrancy, as if the saturation filter had been notched up several levels. Caleb noted all this in passing as he strode deliberately forward. He didn’t know how he was going to do this, only that he had to make the attempt.

Engineers are all too often unsung heroes; if we are ever, in truth, to travel between stars, it will be thanks to their aspirations and imagination... for they are the bridge builders.

Even if the aliens are short, dour, and sexually obsessed—if they’re here, I want to know about them.

Everyone I have spoken with about working with the Russians in space exploration believes that the United States has learned a great deal from Russia and that Russia has learned a great deal from the United States – and that the entire international space partnership is much better because of it.

Her head dropped into her hands. Dammit! She’d spent months preparing for the challenges of a war against an immortal enemy wielding vastly superior numbers. She’d spent years preparing for the challenges of leading an assemblage of disparate fleets headed by disparate personalities. But it had never occurred to her to prepare for the challenges of her dead husband walking back into her life in the middle of both. She had no idea what to do, but she was fairly certain she was doing it wrong.

Fleshers used to spin fantasies about aliens arriving to ‘conquer’ Earth, to steal their ‘precious’ physical resources, to wipe them out for fear of ‘competition’…as if a species capable of making the journey wouldn’t have had the power, or the wit, or the imagination, to rid itself of obsolete biological imperatives. Conquering the Galaxy is what bacteria with spaceships would do – knowing no better, having no choice.

For good or evil, we are a single people: the more we become conscious of this, the less difficult and long will be humanity’s progress toward justice and peace.

Glacier blue plasma rippled and sparked across the interior of the portal. “It seems keeping secrets is what you do.” “Secrets are merely the necessary means. Survival is the end goal. Survival of ourselves, survival of species who do not deserve to be eradicated from the universe. Survival of the universe itself.” “Survival’s noble and all, but what good is it without the freedom to live as you choose?” “A question you have the luxury to ask because you survive.

Grand Turk Island is so named because it is the largest island in the Turks Islands, which is the smaller of the two archipelagos that make up the island nation. Grand Turk was first settled in 1681 by Bermudians, who started a salt industry. In 1766, the Island became the territory's capitol, Cockburn Town. It has the second largest population of the archipelago with 3,720 people. There are those that believe that it was here that Columbus first set foot in the America’s, and although San Salvador is still accepted as being the actual island where he landed, there is convincing evidence that this may not be so. For years Grand Turk was frequently referred to as Grand Cay. Grand Turk gained attention in 1962, when John Glenn's Friendship 7 splashed into the Atlantic Ocean, off the southeast shoreline of the Grand Turk Island. A replica of the Friendship 7 is on display in Grand Turk at the entrance to the Grand Turk Island International Airport.

Had (President) Kennedy turned to his advisers and wailed, "What can we beat the Russians at?" and if someone had cried "Backgammon!" at that point, Apollo would never have happened.

He checked her over while mentally checking himself. “Environment suits sealed up. Breather masks in hand. Daemons. Blades. Transmitters. Healthy respect for the adversary—you’ve got that, right?” One corner of her mouth curled up. “Absolutely.

He has a minor in explosives and the slightly bitter, misanthropic personality of someone who shouldn't.

Her teeth clattered together like banging cymbals. Her fingernails glowed white, and her heart stuttered over two beats. “Input. It. Now.” “Done!” Let go, Nika. All you have to do is let go. She focused on her fingers, which seemed to be glued to the conduit, and directed every conscious process to willing them apart millimeter by— —she flew backward across the room and slammed into what remained of a wall.

Her perception was propelled backward, as if it were being pulled into a vortex. She slammed into her body, and her eyes flew open with a gasp. “Alex?” She sat straight up in the chair and grabbed Caleb by the shoulders. “We have to save them.

He wasn’t going to be able to deactivate the field, which meant there was only one choice. He’d realized early on that his arcane, profoundly alien passenger came with a cost, possibly one too high to pay and get out the other side free and clear. He’d pay it nonetheless and without complaint if the diati would only come through for him now. Caleb closed his eyes.

I am glad we have not yet been able to reach the stars or inhabitable planets that dance about them. For they would in all probability be owned and divided by corporations and framed by industrial interests. Better they rest in distant tranquility, apart from our manufactured chaos. Let generations to come that learn to embrace one another, with their scientists, artists and poets, be the ones that immerse in that abundance and future. For now it is best it remains out of humanity's childlike hands in that big jar, light years away, marked "cookies." There for that coming time when the only thing we need feed off of, is the endless discovery and beauty.

I find these comparisons particularly poignant: life versus death, hope versus fear. Space exploration and the highly mechanized destruction of people use similar technology and manufacturers, and similar human qualities of organization and daring. Can we not make the transition from automated aerospace killing to automated aerospace exploration of the solar system in which we live?

I believe my judgment has never been clearer. I have seen firsthand their potential, their strength of will, in a way you have not.” “You have loosed a chaotic, unstable variable into the Mosaic. They will destroy everything.” “It is a risk. They also may save everything.

Ideally, the ISS program will just be one more incremental step on an expanding, incredible journal of exploration and understanding, taking us higher and farther.

I find it curious that I never heard any astronaut say that he wanted to go to the Moon so he would be able to look back and see the Earth. We all wanted to see what the Moon looked like close up. Yet, for most of us, the most memorable sight was not of the Moon but of our beautiful blue and white home, moving majestically around the sun, all alone and infinite black space.

I’ll do whatever I can to help guarantee this plan succeeds, and I’ll try to make sure I’m in the right place at the right time.” “The right place and time for what?” “If I knew that, ma’am, I probably wouldn’t need to be there.

I frankly expected a far more negative reaction from you on discovering…” she glanced around the lab “…the situation. Why are you helping?” “I’m not helping—I’m merely not hindering in as strenuous a fashion as I am able.

If we are to send people, it must be for a very good reason - and with a realistic understanding that almost certainly we will lose lives. Astronauts and Cosmonauts have always understood this. Nevertheless, there has been and will be no shortage of volunteers.

I lay on my back, surprised at how calm and focused I felt, strapped to four and a half million pounds of explosives.

I’ll gloss right over the implication in what you said that the Reor are sentient entities—for now. Dare I ask why they gave you a copy of their universal decryption key?” Alex and Caleb shared a look, and she shrugged. “We can only speculate, but it’s possible they want us to win.” Miriam dropped her elbows on the table. “Hmm. Okay. In that case, I welcome the minerals to our side of the fight.

I’ll ask you to look at the ships arrayed against you and consider what weaponry they might possess. Weaponry strong enough to crack your hulls? I know what weaponry you bring to bear, and I assure you it will not crack ours. “Are you willing to risk the lives of thousands under your command to find out? Are you willing to risk your own life?” The silence hung across space like a shroud. “This is not over, Admiral Solovy.” “That is the first true thing you’ve said today.

If there was anything the last year had taught her—if there was anything Caleb had taught her, the Metigen War had taught her—it was that perspective was everything. If you wanted to understand your enemy, you must understand that they were the hero in their own story.

It is a very sobering feeling to be up in space and realize that one's safety factor was determined by the lowest bidder on a government contract.

I'm even going to electrolyze my urine. That'll make for a pleasant smell in the trailer. If I survive this, I'll tell people I was pissing rocket fuel.

In other words, pretty much every star you see in the night sky hosts at least one planet. The next time you find yourself outside at night, take a moment to stop and consider the implications of this result as you gaze at all those pinpricks of light. Every one of them hosts at least one world, and most stars will have more than one planet. Solar systems are the rule and not the exception. They’re everywhere.

In the field of technology, simplification is always an enormous advance...

It felt somehow comforting to return to the sparkling lake tucked into the mountains on Portal Prime. But why, when everything about Mesme made her the antithesis of comfortable? Because here was where desperation had become hope. Where helplessness had become purpose.

I sailed upon oceans, and I thought no challenge could be greater, and now men sail the void between stars. Oh, how I remember them. The constellations burning so bright at night. How could I ever have known? God's creation has a majesty which lays men bare at his feet.

...It wasn’t only the color that suggested war to the ancients—it was the strange motion of Mars and the other visible disks that did not behave like the stars, seemingly fixed in the firmament, but advanced and retreated and advanced again along their paths. These disks were given the name planets, meaning wanderers.

It was a subversive notion, the idea that she was free. Free to choose where to go and what to do with her time.

It was killing him, seeing her this way. She was not meant to be uncertain, timid or fearful; the woman he knew exuded confidence so fiercely it might as well be a damn spiritual aura. He needed to fix this. “It’s time to adjust your perspective. You want to show the politicians on Earth they don’t rule the galaxy? Well, let’s show them.

It’s pretty hard to get to another star system. Alpha Centauri is four light years away, so if you go at 10 per cent of the speed of light, it’s going to take you 40 years, and that’s assuming you can instantly reach that speed, which isn’t going to be the case. You have to accelerate. You have to build up to 20 or 30 per cent and then slow down, assuming you want to stay at Alpha Centauri and not go zipping past. It’s just hard. With current life spans, you need generational ships. You need antimatter drives, because that’s the most mass-efficient. It’s doable, but it’s super slow.

Just because your electronics are better than ours, you aren't necessarily superior in any way. Look, imagine that you humans are a man in LA with a brand-new Trujillo and we are a nuhp in New York with a beat-up old Ford. The two fellows start driving toward St. Louis. Now, the guy in the Trujillo is doing 120 on the interstates, and the guy in the Ford is putting along at 55; but the human in the Trujillo stops in Vegas and puts all of his gas money down the hole of a blackjack table, and the determined little nuhp cruises along for days until at last he reaches his goal. It's all a matter of superior intellect and the will to succeed. Your people talk a lot about going to the stars, but you just keep putting your money into other projects, like war and popular music and international athletic events and resurrecting the fashions of previous decades. If you wanted to go into space, you would have.