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21 quotes from the Apollo 11 astronauts on everything from walking on the moon to the future of spaceflight
21 quotes from the Apollo 11 astronauts on everything from walking on the moon to the future of spaceflight
Ivan De LuceJul 16, 2019, 00:39 IST
In this July 16, 1969 file photo, Neil Armstrong, waving in front, heads for the van that will take the crew to the rocket for launch to the moon at Kennedy Space Center in Merritt Island, Fla.AP
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50 years ago, the Apollo 11 astronauts took off for the moon.
Aside from Neil Armstrong's unforgettable words upon walking the lunar surface, the three astronauts had much more to say about their experiences.
Here are their most unforgettable quotes on everything from their historic mission to the future of space travel.
Half a century ago, on July 16, 1969, the Apollo 11 astronauts took off for the moon.
Neil Armstrong, Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin, and Michael Collins arrived four days later to a place no human being had ever been before.
Collins orbited the moon while Armstrong and Aldrin landed on its surface. It took them hours to put on their space suits and prep for touchdown. After descending the ladder onto the lunar surface, Armstrong uttered his historic words: "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind." (Armstrong would later claim, "'That's one small step for 'a' man.' It's just that people just didn't hear it.")
The 600 million people watching the moon landing on television would remember that line. But the three astronauts had much more to say about their experience flying to the moon and back.
"There are great ideas undiscovered, breakthroughs available to those who can remove one of truth's protective layers. There are places to go beyond belief."
"One truth I have discovered for sure: When you believe that all things are possible and you are willing to work hard to accomplish your goals, you can achieve the next 'impossible' dream. No dream is too high!"
Neil Armstrong on challenges (answered during Apollo 11's pre-flight news conference)
"I think we're going to the moon because it's in the nature of the human being to face challenges. It's by the nature of his deep inner soul … we're required to do these things just as salmon swim upstream."
"We are off! And do we know it, not just because the world is yelling 'Liftoff' in our ears, but because the seats of our pants tell us so! Trust your instruments, not your body, the modern pilot is always told, but this beast is best felt. Shake, rattle and roll!"
"There's a tremendously satisfying freedom associated with weightlessness. It's challenging in the absence of traction or leverage, and it requires thoughtful readjustment. I found the experience of weightlessness to be one of the most fun and enjoyable, challenging and rewarding, experiences of spaceflight. Returning to Earth brings with it a great sense of heaviness, and a need for careful movement. In some ways it's not too different from returning from a rocking ocean ship."
"I thought, well, when I step off it's just going to be a little step — a step from there down to there — but then I thought about all those 400,000 people who had given me the opportunity to make that step and thought it's going to be a big something for all those folks and, indeed for a lot of others that weren't even involved in the project, so it was kind of a simple correlation."
"I really believe that if the political leaders of the world could see their planet from a distance of, let's say 100,000 miles, their outlook would be fundamentally changed. The all-important border would be invisible, that noisy argument suddenly silenced."
"I am alone now, truly alone, and absolutely isolated from any known life. I am it. If a count were taken, the score would be three billion plus two over on the other side of the moon, and one plus God knows what on this side."
"From the distance of the moon, Earth was four times the size of a full moon seen from Earth. It was a brilliant jewel in the black velvet sky. Yet it was still at a great distance, considering the challenges of the voyage home."
"As the senior crew member, it was appropriate for [Armstrong] to be the first. But after years and years of being asked to speak to a group of people and then be introduced as the second man on the moon, it does get a little frustrating. Is it really necessary to point out to the crowd that somebody else was first when we all went through the same training, we all landed at the same time and all contributed? But for the rest of my life I'll always be identified as the second man to walk on the moon. [Laughs.]"
"Everyone who's been in space would, I'm sure, welcome the opportunity for a return to the exhilarating experiences there. For me, a flight in a shuttle, though most satisfying, would be anticlimactic after my flight to the moon."
"I am, and ever will be, a white-socks, pocket-protector, nerdy engineer — born under the second law of thermodynamics, steeped in the steam tables, in love with free-body diagrams, transformed by Laplace, and propelled by compressible flow."
"Oh, I am quite certain that we will have such bases in our lifetime, somewhat like the Antarctic stations and similar scientific outposts — continually manned. Although, certainly there is the problem of the environment, the vacuum, the high and low temperatures of day and night. Still, in all, in many ways, it's more hospitable than Antarctica might be."
"The urge to explore has propelled evolution since the first water creatures reconnoitered the land. Like all living systems, cultures cannot remain static; they evolve or decline. They explore or expire."
