Quotes by Astronaut

"When you're getting ready to launch into space, you're sitting on a big explosion waiting to happen."

Sally Ride, American Astronaut

Space, Waiting

"For quite some time, women at NASA only had scientific backgrounds."

Sally Ride, American Astronaut

Woman, Women, Time

"But even in elementary school and junior high, I was very interested in space and in the space program."

Sally Ride, American Astronaut

School, Space

"But when I wasn't working, I was usually at a window looking down at Earth."

Sally Ride, American Astronaut

Earth,

"Even though NASA tries to simulate launch, and we practice in simulators, it's not the same - it's not even close to the same."

Sally Ride, American Astronaut

Practice,

"I didn't really decide that I wanted to be an astronaut for sure until the end of college."

Sally Ride, American Astronaut

College, End

"I do a lot of running and hiking, and I also collect stamps - space stamps and Olympics stamps."

Sally Ride, American Astronaut

Running, Space

"It's easy to sleep floating around - it's very comfortable. But you have to be careful that you don't float into somebody or something!"

Sally Ride, American Astronaut

Sleep,

"Different astronauts sleep in different ways."

Sally Ride, American Astronaut

Sleep,

1

"It takes a couple of years just to get the background and knowledge that you need before you can go into detailed training for your mission."

Sally Ride, American Astronaut

Knowledge, Mission, Training, Years

"I was always very interested in science, and I knew that for me, science was a better long-term career than tennis."

Sally Ride, American Astronaut

Science, Career, Tennis

"I slept just floating in the middle of the flight deck, the upper deck of the space shuttle."

Sally Ride, American Astronaut

Space,

"I liked math - that was my favorite subject - and I was very interested in astronomy and in physical science."

Sally Ride, American Astronaut

Science, Astronomy, Favorite

"I had both male and female heroes."

Sally Ride, American Astronaut

Heroism, Heroes

"I felt very honored, and I knew that people would be watching very closely, and I felt it was very, very important that I do a good job."

Sally Ride, American Astronaut

People, Job

"If a man will make a purchase of a chance he must abide by the consequences."

Richard Richards, American Astronaut

Chance, Consequences, Man, Will

"Even with only two people on board, where maintenance is a large piece of our working day, we still have time to do scientific research. We have to be ready to support those Shuttle visits in a lot of different ways."

John L. Phillips, American Astronaut

Time, People, Day, Research

"I never made a career decision based solely on my desire to be an astronaut. I attended the Naval Academy because I wanted to be a Navy pilot. I majored in math because math had always come pretty easily to me and I liked it."

John L. Phillips, American Astronaut

Decision-Making, Decision, Career, Desire, Navy

"My dad served in two wars has been flying airplanes for 60 years now. He was certainly quite an inspiration."

John L. Phillips, American Astronaut

Inspirational, Dad, Inspiration, Airplanes, Flying

"A civilization that only looks inward will stagnate. We have to keep looking outward; we have to keep finding new avenues for human endeavor and human expression."

John L. Phillips, American Astronaut

Civilization, Expression, Will

"It so happened that my goals kind of matched my career progression toward becoming an astronaut."

John L. Phillips, American Astronaut

Goal, Goals, Career

"After assembly complete, when we have a larger crew on orbit, a more complex vehicle, more laboratories and more robot arms, maybe we'll have room for specialists. But right now we don't."

John L. Phillips, American Astronaut

Now, Right

"I think it's going to be a very important, unique data set in terms of measuring the behavior of your lower body in space and trying to figure out what we can do to preserve bone and muscle density."

John L. Phillips, American Astronaut

Behavior, Body, Space, Trying

"It took me a long time to get selected as an astronaut. In fact, I applied for 20 years before I was selected."

John L. Phillips, American Astronaut

Time, Fact, Years

"Every day, we get a little bit closer to the kind of expertise and the kind of experience we're going to need to go there. I'd love to be the guy walking on Mars."

John L. Phillips, American Astronaut

Love, Experience, Day, Expertise

1

"In the 19th Century people were looking for the Northwest Passage. Ships were lost and brave people were killed, but that doesn't mean we never went back to that part of the world again, and I consider it the same in space exploration."

John L. Phillips, American Astronaut

People, Exploration, Ships, Space

"If I wasn't doing this kind of exploration, I'd like to be doing some other kind of exploration. It might be more risky, or less risky, but, in the business of exploration, risk is part of the territory."

John L. Phillips, American Astronaut

Business, Exploration, Risk

"The Space Shuttle will stop directly below the Space Station and Sergei and I will be looking out two different windows looking straight down at the Space Shuttle."

John L. Phillips, American Astronaut

Space, Will, Windows

"We're going to be focusing our science on things that will take us farther and longer into space. For many of those experiments, the crew members are human guinea pigs, which is fine; that's part of my job. I don't mind being a human guinea pig."

John L. Phillips, American Astronaut

Science, Being, Job, Mind

"We would like to carry out 100 percent, or maybe more, of our scientific program; I would like to devote some of my spare time toward extra scientific work."

John L. Phillips, American Astronaut

Time, Work

"I had been here five years already, training very hard, learning about the systems, the shuttle, the station systems. But, everything really became real when I started to work with them."

Philippe Perrin, French Astronaut

Work, Learning, Training, Years

1

"I think doing something of your life is something that you've got deep inside, whether it's to, whether you want to be an astronaut or a, whether you want to do science, or whether you want to be a movie star, or whatever."

Philippe Perrin, French Astronaut

Life, Science, Deep, Want

"I think that witnessing ecological problems visible from space is one of the new and essential roles of astronauts."

Philippe Perrin, French Astronaut

Problems, Space

"I've been as a pilot involved in the Gulf War. And then, in the No-Fly Zone."

Philippe Perrin, French Astronaut

War, Zone

"It's only when you're flying above it that you realize how incredible the Earth really is."

Philippe Perrin, French Astronaut

Earth, Flying

"The student develops an analytical as well as finely blended character. He is able to choose from a wide variety of job fields from which to embrace a career, without having to be a specialist in one particular discipline."

Philippe Perrin, French Astronaut

Character, Discipline, Career, Job

"Yes, I see the Mobile Base System really is the shoulder of the arm. The arm is right there, like a human arm. It's really funny to look at the similarities between a human arm and the Canadian robotics arm."

Philippe Perrin, French Astronaut

Fun, Funny, Right

"This mission was the project of a decade's work."

Philippe Perrin, French Astronaut

Work, Mission, Project

"So, it takes a lot of chance and luck. I mean I was lucky enough to get in the program where people with the same skills never made it to the program. So keep trying."

Philippe Perrin, French Astronaut

People, Chance, Luck, Trying

"So, for me, I make no difference whether I'm training with my shuttle crew or the Expedition crew. Of course, I think I want to take more care of the Expedition crew, because they're going to stay there for a long time."

Philippe Perrin, French Astronaut

Time, Care, Difference, Training

1

"So it's, I think it's quite, quite unique to fly with somebody with so much experience."

Philippe Perrin, French Astronaut

Experience,

"Since there always has to be a certain number of astronauts manning the station at all times, one of the main aspects of the mission was to transport a new team to the station and bring back some members of the previous team back to Earth."

Philippe Perrin, French Astronaut

Earth, Mission

"And, I think, as a kid, I had a strong motivation to do something of my life. And, I think that's the strongest motivation I really got. And, that came obviously from my parents and my grandparents."

Philippe Perrin, French Astronaut

Motivational, Life, Motivation, Grandparents

"Especially when I first really started to work with Kenneth and Franklin, who had been in space already. And so, they were able to talk about space and tell me a few things about how things would really happen."

Philippe Perrin, French Astronaut

Work, First, Space, Talk

"What everyone in the astronaut corps shares in common is not gender or ethnic background, but motivation, perseverance, and desire - the desire to participate in a voyage of discovery."

Ellen Ochoa, American Astronaut

Motivational, Motivation, Perseverance, Desire, Discovery

"I tell students that the opportunities I had were a result of having a good educational background. Education is what allows you to stand out."

Ellen Ochoa, American Astronaut

Education, Result, Students

"My first dream as a child was to become a pilot. My second dream was to become an astronomer, and I pursued in parallel efforts and studies in these two areas."

Claude Nicollier, American Astronaut

Dream, First

"I would say the most help I got was from my dad. My dad is a civil engineer in Switzerland; he's 90 years old now, so he's no longer active as a civil engineer, but still a very active person."

Claude Nicollier, American Astronaut

Family, Dad, Help, Now, Old

"On one hand, to be able to go from one direction in the sky to study such an object to another direction to study another object, and on the other hand to be able to maintain accurately the position in space."

Claude Nicollier, American Astronaut

Direction, Sky, Space, Study

"Hubble is very close to my heart, and going back to Hubble, because I was there once already in 1993, is really a great privilege for me."

Claude Nicollier, American Astronaut

Heart, Privilege

"When you're getting ready to launch into space, you're sitting on a big explosion waiting to happen."

​

"For quite some time, women at NASA only had scientific backgrounds."

​

"But even in elementary school and junior high, I was very interested in space and in the space program."

​

"But when I wasn't working, I was usually at a window looking down at Earth."

​

"Even though NASA tries to simulate launch, and we practice in simulators, it's not the same - it's not even close to the same."

​

"I didn't really decide that I wanted to be an astronaut for sure until the end of college."

​

"I do a lot of running and hiking, and I also collect stamps - space stamps and Olympics stamps."

​

"It's easy to sleep floating around - it's very comfortable. But you have to be careful that you don't float into somebody or something!"

​

"Different astronauts sleep in different ways."

1

"It takes a couple of years just to get the background and knowledge that you need before you can go into detailed training for your mission."

​

"I was always very interested in science, and I knew that for me, science was a better long-term career than tennis."

​

"I slept just floating in the middle of the flight deck, the upper deck of the space shuttle."

​

"I liked math - that was my favorite subject - and I was very interested in astronomy and in physical science."

​

"I had both male and female heroes."

​

"I felt very honored, and I knew that people would be watching very closely, and I felt it was very, very important that I do a good job."

​

"If a man will make a purchase of a chance he must abide by the consequences."

​

"Even with only two people on board, where maintenance is a large piece of our working day, we still have time to do scientific research. We have to be ready to support those Shuttle visits in a lot of different ways."

​

"I never made a career decision based solely on my desire to be an astronaut. I attended the Naval Academy because I wanted to be a Navy pilot. I majored in math because math had always come pretty easily to me and I liked it."

​

"My dad served in two wars has been flying airplanes for 60 years now. He was certainly quite an inspiration."

​

"A civilization that only looks inward will stagnate. We have to keep looking outward; we have to keep finding new avenues for human endeavor and human expression."

​

"It so happened that my goals kind of matched my career progression toward becoming an astronaut."

​

"After assembly complete, when we have a larger crew on orbit, a more complex vehicle, more laboratories and more robot arms, maybe we'll have room for specialists. But right now we don't."

​

"I think it's going to be a very important, unique data set in terms of measuring the behavior of your lower body in space and trying to figure out what we can do to preserve bone and muscle density."

​

"It took me a long time to get selected as an astronaut. In fact, I applied for 20 years before I was selected."

​

"Every day, we get a little bit closer to the kind of expertise and the kind of experience we're going to need to go there. I'd love to be the guy walking on Mars."

1

"In the 19th Century people were looking for the Northwest Passage. Ships were lost and brave people were killed, but that doesn't mean we never went back to that part of the world again, and I consider it the same in space exploration."

​

"If I wasn't doing this kind of exploration, I'd like to be doing some other kind of exploration. It might be more risky, or less risky, but, in the business of exploration, risk is part of the territory."

​

"The Space Shuttle will stop directly below the Space Station and Sergei and I will be looking out two different windows looking straight down at the Space Shuttle."

​

"We're going to be focusing our science on things that will take us farther and longer into space. For many of those experiments, the crew members are human guinea pigs, which is fine; that's part of my job. I don't mind being a human guinea pig."

​

"We would like to carry out 100 percent, or maybe more, of our scientific program; I would like to devote some of my spare time toward extra scientific work."

​

"I had been here five years already, training very hard, learning about the systems, the shuttle, the station systems. But, everything really became real when I started to work with them."

1

"I think doing something of your life is something that you've got deep inside, whether it's to, whether you want to be an astronaut or a, whether you want to do science, or whether you want to be a movie star, or whatever."

​

"I think that witnessing ecological problems visible from space is one of the new and essential roles of astronauts."

​

"I've been as a pilot involved in the Gulf War. And then, in the No-Fly Zone."

​

"It's only when you're flying above it that you realize how incredible the Earth really is."

​

"The student develops an analytical as well as finely blended character. He is able to choose from a wide variety of job fields from which to embrace a career, without having to be a specialist in one particular discipline."

​

"Yes, I see the Mobile Base System really is the shoulder of the arm. The arm is right there, like a human arm. It's really funny to look at the similarities between a human arm and the Canadian robotics arm."

​

"This mission was the project of a decade's work."

​

"So, it takes a lot of chance and luck. I mean I was lucky enough to get in the program where people with the same skills never made it to the program. So keep trying."

​

"So, for me, I make no difference whether I'm training with my shuttle crew or the Expedition crew. Of course, I think I want to take more care of the Expedition crew, because they're going to stay there for a long time."