John Glenn Quotes

You know, old folks can have dreams, too, as well as young folks, and then work toward them. And to have a dream like this come true for me is just a terrific experience.

Exploration, of course, is going to new places, but I don't think we go to new places just solely to say: "Well, we've been there," and come back, interesting though it may be. To me, each time we go farther into space we should use that to do basic research - basic research that can't be done before you go there.

America needs the best education system in the world. We have it in higher education. We do not have it in general education for all of our people - the K-12 education. Other nations are far, far outdoing the United States in that area. We still have the lead in research, but once again, other nations are pouring more into research also. We still have a lead, but to me it's just very, very important that we keep that lead in basic research.

We had an airplane, a Beechcraft Baron, that we - I had since 1981. And Annie [Glenn] and I both of had to have knee replacements unfortunately over the past year, and it made it more difficult to climb up on the airplane. We weren't using it that much so we did - it hurt a lot but I finally sold the airplane.

A lot of people ask...why a man is willing to risk... Well, we've got to do it. We're going into an age of exploration that will be bigger than anything the world has ever seen... If a man faces up to the (unknown) and takes the dare of the future, he can have some control over his destiny.

We used to joke about canned men, putting people in a can and seeing how far you can send them and bring them back. That's not the purpose of this program... Space is a laboratory, and we go into it to work and learn the new.