Space travel is utter bilge. I don't think anybody will ever put up enough money to do such a thing. . . . It is all rather rot.
Richard van der Riet WoolleyThe whole procedure [of shooting rockets into space] . . . presents difficulties of so fundamental a nature, that we are forced to dismiss the notion as essentially impracticable, in spite of the author's insistent appeal to put aside prejudice and to recollect the supposed impossibility of heavier-than-air flight before it was actually accomplished. An analogy such as this may be misleading, and we believe it to be so in this case.
Richard van der Riet Woolley