Exploration is really the essence of the human spirit.

There is just no way that I can understand in God's green earth that an airline could undertake with its normal procedures the operation of the Space Shuttle. . . . You don't put parachutes on airliners because the margin of safety is built into the machine. The 727 airplanes we fly are proven vehicles with levels of safety and redundancy built in. The shuttle is a hand-made piece of experimental gear.

We have to earn our Wings every day.

A superior pilot uses his superior judgment to avoid situations which require the use of his superior skill.

When you're finally up on the moon, looking back at the earth, all these differences and nationalistic traits are pretty well going to blend and you're going to get a concept that maybe this is really one world and why the hell can't we learn to live together like decent people?

The view of the Earth from the Moon fascinated me -- a small disk, 240,000 miles away. . . . Raging nationalistic interests, famines, wars, pestilence, don't show from that distance.

Astronauts: space activists.