Space Race Quotes

“We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard.

[Address at Rice University, September 12 1962]”
― John F. Kennedy

“There are so many problems to solve on this planet first before we begin to trash other worlds.”
― E.A. Bucchianeri, Brushstrokes of a Gadfly

“They turned their desks into a trigonometric war room, poring over equations scrawling ideas on blackboards, evaluating their work, erasing it, starting over.”
― Margot Lee Shetterly, Hidden Figures

“As fantastical as America’s space ambitions might have seemed, sending a man into space was starting to feel like a straightforward task compared to putting black and white students together in the same Virginia classrooms.”
― Margot Lee Shetterly, Hidden Figures

“I think, ladies and gentlemen, and I particularly address those of you who have a socialist outlook, that we should at least permit this socialist economy to prove its superiority. Let's allow it to show that it is advanced, that it is omnipotent, that it has defeated you, that it has overtaken you. Let us not interfere with it. Let us stop selling to it and giving it loans. If it's all that powerful, then let it stand on its own feet for ten or fifteen years. Then we will see what it looks like. I can tell you what it will look like. I am being quite serious now. When the Soviet economy will no longer be able to deal with everything, it will have to reduce its military preparations. It will have to abandon the useless space effort and it will have to feed and clothe its own people. And the system will be forced to relax.

Thus, all I ask of you is that as long as this Soviet economy is so proud, so flourishing, and yours is so rotten and so moribund—stop helping it. When has a cripple ever helped along an athlete?”
― Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Warning to the West

“By apeculiar coincidence, the very day when I was giving my address in Washington, Mikhail Suslov was talking with your senators in the Kremlin. And he said, "In fact the significance of our trade is more political than economic. We can get along without your trade." That is a lie. The whole existence of our slaveowners from beginning to end relies on Western economic assistance....The Soviet economy has an extremely low level of efficiency. What is done here by a few people, by a few machines, in our country takes tremendous crowds of workers and enormous amounts of material. Therefore, the Soviet economy cannot deal with every problem at once: war, space (which is part of the war effort), heavy industry, light industry, and at the same time feed and clothe its own population. The forces of the entire Soviet economy are concentrated on war, where you don't help them. But everything lacking, everything needed to fill the gaps, everything necessary to free the people, or for other types of industry, they get from you. So indirectly you are helping their military preparations. You are helping the Soviet police state.”
― Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Warning to the West

“The congressmen in the room just wanted to see them, to use their position to arrange a personal audience, to gaze upon them with their own eyes across the committee table, no more than four feet away, to shake hands with them, occupy the same space on this earth with them for and hour or so, fawn over them, pay homage to them, bathe in their magical aura, feel the radiation of their righteous stuff, salute them, wish upon them the smile of God...”
― Tom Wolfe, The Right Stuff

“New worlds await us! Trembling with fear!”
― Ljupka Cvetanova, The New Land

“Then it seemed that the Colonel was going on about the Space Race and the Cold War. “…Did you really think that your country’s Apollo 1 disaster was an accident? It is Mother Russia that will conquer these new worlds first, not you! It will be a Red Moon that the West sees at night!”
― C.G. Faulkner, The Edge of Reality

“Space Exploration Ethics 101

If we can colonize Mars, we can heal the Earth. But that's not the point here. The point is, we gotta explore space just like we gotta explore anything unknown - but we must do so as humble scientists, not as steroid-pumped, illegitimate offspring of musky retards like Columbus.

We gotta explore space just like we explore the Arctic. Humankind has several outposts in the Arctic, dedicated solely to research - our endeavors into other planets oughta be exactly like that. Otherwise, what starts out as space exploration will soon turn into space imperialism, and will do to other planets what white terrorists have been doing to the indegenous people on earth for ages.

Therefore, focus on space exploration, not on space colonization. Let me put this into perspective. NASA, ISRO, CNSA, ESA, KARI, JAXA (and more) - these represent the real democratic aspirations of humankind's endeavors of curiosity into space, whereas SpaceX, Blue Origin, Virgin Galactic these are the new-age posterboys of space imperialism.

All I say is this, O Brave Explorers of Space - your mission is to explore the universe to facilitate human welfare, not to be some retarded billionaire's backboneless underwear. Beware, I repeat - space exploration doesn't turn into space imperialism!”
― Abhijit Naskar, Tum Dunya Tek Millet: Greatest Country on Earth is Earth

“Beware, space exploration doesn't turn into space imperialism!”
― Abhijit Naskar, Tum Dunya Tek Millet: Greatest Country on Earth is Earth

“O Brave Explorers of Space - your mission is to explore the universe to facilitate human welfare, not to be some retarded billionaire's backboneless underwear.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Tum Dunya Tek Millet: Greatest Country on Earth is Earth

“NASA, ISRO, CNSA, ESA, KARI, JAXA (and more) - these represent the real democratic aspirations of humankind's endeavors of curiosity into space, whereas SpaceX, Blue Origin, Virgin Galactic these are the new-age posterboys of space imperialism.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Tum Dunya Tek Millet: Greatest Country on Earth is Earth