NASA QUOTES

1 " As when astronaut Mike Mulhane was asked by a NASA psychiatrist what epitaph he'd like to have on his gravestone, Mulhane answered, " A loving husband and devoted father," though in reality, he jokes in " Riding Rockets," " I would have sold my wife and children into slavery for a ride into space. "

2 " When I started writing I wanted the best tools. I skipped right over chisels on rocks, stylus on wet clay plates, quills and fountain pens, even mechanical pencils, and went straight to one of the first popular spin-offs of the aerospace program: the ballpoint pen. They were developed for comber navigators in the war because fountain pens would squirt all over your leather bomber jacket at altitude. (I have a cherished example of the next generation ballpoint, a pressurized Space Pen cleverly designed to work in weightlessness, given to me by Spider Robinson. At least, I cherish it when I can find it. It is also cleverly designed to seek out the lowest point of your desk, roll off, then find the lowest point on the floor, under a heavy piece of furniture. That's because it is cylindrical and lacks a pocket clip to keep it from rolling. In space, I presume it would float out of your pocket and find a forgotten corner of your spacecraft to hide in. NASA spent $3 million developing it. Good job, guys. I'm sure it's around here somewhere.) "

― John Varley , The John Varley Reader

3 " Log Entry: SOL 118My conversation with NASA about the Water Reclaimer was boring and riddled with technical details. So I'll paraphrase for you:Me: " This is obviously a clog. How about I take it apart and check the internal tubing?" NASA: (After about 5 hours of deliberation) " No. You'll fuck it up and die." So I took it apart. "

4 " On a plaque attached to the NASA deep space probe we [human beings] are described in symbols for the benefit of any aliens who might meet the spacecraft as “bilaterly symmetrical, sexually differentiated bipeds, located on one of the outer spiral arms of the Milky Way, capable of recognising the prime numbers and moved by one extraordinary quality that lasts longer than all our other urges—curiosity. "

― david wells

5 " Also unfortunately, Congress is far too busy asking if baseball players are really as strong as they seem and trying to choke bankers with wads of cash to grant more funds to such trifling matters as the avoidance of space bullets, so they won't give NASA the money "

― Robert Brockway

6 " Turns out even NASA can't improve on duct tape. "

7 " Earth is not the only planet where there is life,' Sandra began.I frowned. 'Well, yeah, the NASA thinks there are aliens in outer space, right? Or maybe in other planets. You into science?'Sandra exchanged a confused glance with Janis. 'No,' she said slowly. 'I'm not particularly a science geek and I'm not talking about aliens or planets, Nashira, I'm talking about a star. "

8 " When I applied to graduate school many years ago, I wrote an essay expressing my puzzlement at how a country that could put a man on the moon could still have people sleeping on the streets. Part of that problem is political will; we could take a lot of people off the streets tomorrow if we made it a national priority. But I have also come to realize that NASA had it easy. Rockets conform to the unchanging laws of physics. We know where the moon will be at a given time; we know precisely how fast a spacecraft will enter or exist the earth's orbit. If we get the equations right, the rocket will land where it is supposed to--always. Human beings are more complex than that. A recovering drug addict does not behave as predictably as a rocket in orbit. We don't have a formula for persuading a sixteen-year-old not to drop out of school. But we do have a powerful tool: We know that people seek to make themselves better off, however they may define that. Our best hope for improving the human condition is to understand why we act the way we do and then plan accordingly. Programs, organizations, and systems work better when they get the incentives right. It is like rowing downstream. "

― Charles Wheelan , Naked Economics: Undressing the Dismal Science

9 " With an accelerated schedule of launch in just two months, NASA and contractor launch and support teams labor steadily with six-day work weeks by day and night shifts "

― Martha Lemasters , The Step: One Woman's Journey to Finding Her Own Happiness and Success During the Apollo Space Program

10 " My favorite lecturer was Alan Bean, who flew on Apollo 12 and is one of the twelve guys who walked on the moon. After retiring from NASA, he became a painter. Alan's lecture was called " The Art of Space Exploration." He talked about the mistakes he'd made and how he learned to fix them. One lesson that took him a while to learn was that at a place like NASA you can only have an effect on certain things. You can't control who likes you. You can't control who gets assigned to flights or what NASA's budget is going to be next year. If you get caught up worrying about things you can't control, you'll drive yourself nuts. It's better to focus on the things right in front of you. Identify the places where you can have a positive impact. Concentrate there and let the rest take care of itself. The last thing Alan said to us was 'What most people want in life is to do something great. That doesn't happen often. Don't take it for granted. Don't be blasé about it. And don't blow it. A lot of times, believe it or not, people blow it. "

11 " I'm fairly certain that, at this very minute, the [Mars Polar Lander] is floating somewhere around the Neptune feeling tired and cranky and looking for a Holiday Inn.

Of course, you'd have to have a heart of titanium not to feel a twinge of sadness while watching those dejected NASA scientiest waiting by the phone like the class wallflower on prom week.

On the other hand, it was kind of fun to watch a bunch of men waiting by the phone and seeing how they feel when someone promises they'll call and then YOU NEVER HEAR FROM HIM AGAIN. "

― Celia Rivenbark , Bless Your Heart, Tramp: And Other Southern Endearments

12 " The scary thing about the protective properties of dietary intake regarding abnormal human radiation exposures is that NASA has understood this for decades! "

― Steven Magee

13 " That NASA was involved suggests that L.A. was considered so alien both to police officers and to scientists that it resembled the landscape of another world. There is Mars, there is the moon, and there is Los Angeles. "

― , A Burglar's Guide to the City

14 " Everyone keeps looking on their defects. It's not like everyone's perfect, we all are are ugly and at the same time beautiful. It's just how we should carry and believe in ourselves. Nasa attitude yan, wala sa hitsura "

― HaveYouSeenThisGirL

15 " Histories of the Kennedy Space Center acknowledge without exaggeration that the obstacle posed by the mosquitoes was so serious that NASA quite literally could not have put a man on the moon by Kennedy's " before the decade is out" deadline without the invention of DDT. In this way, the challenges of spaceflight reveal themselves to be distinctly terrestrial. "

16 " Within a year, possibly by next fall," he was saying, " something that has never before been done, will be done. NASA will be sending men to the moon. Think of that. Men who were once in classrooms like this one will leave their footprints on the lunar surface." He paused. I leaned in close against the wall so I could hear him. " That is why you are sitting here tonight, and why you will be coming here in the months ahead. You come to dream dreams. You come to build fantastic castles up in the air. And you come to learn how to build the foundations that make those castles real. When the men who will command that mission were boys your age, no one knew. But in a few months, that's what will happen. So, twenty years from now, what will people say of you? 'No one knew then that this kid Washington Irving High School would grow up to do'...what? What castle will you build? "

17 " How have everything started???
Just two humans man and woman make so many people on the planet??? That's impossible, it can't happe, it's something else..... SO what you are saying Adam has fucked Eve day and night??? ANd how have they take care for so many kids???... What if the planet is flat and nasa and all other stuff are lieing??? "

― Deyth Banger

18 " If I could have anything, it would be a radio to ask NASA the safe path down the Ramp. Well, if I could have anything, it would be for the green-skinned yet beautiful Queen of Mars to rescue me so she can learn more about this Earth thing called “lovemaking. "

― Andy Weir , The Martian

19 " That's what we want to do here at Johnson Space Center. I think what we have always brought to NASA and brought to the country is trying to push the boundaries, trying to go to the next level. "

20 " I'm substantially concerned about the policy directions of the space agency. We have a situation in the U.S. where the White House and Congress are at odds over what the future direction should be. They're sort of playing a game and NASA is the shuttlecock that they're hitting back and forth. "

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