Rockets Quotes

“I'm even going to electrolyze my urine. That'll make for a pleasant smell in the trailer.

If I survive this, I'll tell people I was pissing rocket fuel.”
― Andy Weir, The Martian

“Careers, like rockets, don’t always take off on schedule. The key is to keep working the engines.”
― Gary Sinise

“In children's drawings, all houses have chimneys, all monkeys eat bananas, and every rocket is a V-2. Even after decades of stepped-back multistage behemoths, chunky orbiters, and space planes, the midcentury-modern Enterprise, the polyhedral bulk of Imperial star destroyers and Borg cubes, the Ortho-Cyclen disk of Millennium Falcon - in our deepest imaginations the surest way to the nearest planet remains a trim cigar tapering to a pointed nose cone, poised on the tips of four swept-back axial fins.”
― Michael Chabon, Moonglow

“Most of the Navy work on peroxide was not directed towards missiles, but towards what was called "super performance" for fighter planes -an auxiliary rocket propulsion unit that could be brought into play to produce a burst of very high speed- so that when a pilot found six Migs breathing down his neck he could hit the panic button and perform the maneuver known as getting the hell out of here.”
― John D. Clark, Ignition!: An informal history of liquid rocket propellants

“Joe? You know that stuff you sent me to test for thermal stability? Well, first, it hasn't got any. Second, you owe me a new bomb, a new Wianco pickup, a new stirrer, and maybe a few more things I'll think of later. And third (crescendo and fortissimo) you'll have a couple of flunkies up here within fifteen minutes to clean up this (-bleep-) mess or I'll be down there with a rusty hacksaw blade..." I specified the anatomical use to which the saw blade would be put. End of conversation.”
― John D. Clark, Ignition!: An informal history of liquid rocket propellants

“As to rocket ships flying between America and Europe, I believe it is worth seriously trying for. Thirty years ago persons who were developing flying were laughed at as mad, and that scorn hindered aviation. Now we heap similar ridicule upon stratoplane or rocket ships for trans-Atlantic flights. (1933)

[Predicting high-altitude jet aircraft for routine long-distance travel.]”
― Auguste Piccard

“I look at the world around me and I see that many of Adolf Hitlers dreams have come true: Weapons of mass destruction, huge rockets, surveillance of the masses, world domination, mistreatment of the poor, sick and elderly, to name just a few.”
― Steven Magee

“The only possible source of trouble connected with the acid is its corrosive nature, which can be overcome by the use of corrosion-resistant materials.' Ha! If they had known the trouble that nitrid acid was to cause before it was finally domesticated, the authors would probably have stepped out of the lab and shot themselves.”
― John D. Clark, Ignition!: An informal history of liquid rocket propellants

“In general, everybody got respectable performances out of peroxide, although there were some difficulties with ignition and with combustion stability, but that freezing point was a tough problem, and most organizations rather lost interest in the oxidizer.

Except the Navy. At just that time the admirals were kicking and screaming and refusing their gold-braided lunches at the thought of bringing nitric acid aboard their beloved carriers; they were also digging in their heels with a determined stubbornness that they hadn't shown since that day when it had first been suggested that steam might be preferable to sail for moving a battleship from point A to point B.”
― John D. Clark, Ignition!: An informal history of liquid rocket propellants

“The new transportation system is multi-modal, autonomous and electric. People utilize a variety of vehicles including cars, bicycles, passenger drones, hoverboards, airplanes, boats, rockets and more. And with ease, efficiency and comfort. At Mayflower-Plymouth, we’re making that real.”
― Hendrith Vanlon Smith Jr

“If one part of a country is watching football match while the other part of the same country is under heavy attacks by the rockets, then we can say that there is no nation in that country, but there is only crowd of people!”
― Mehmet Murat ildan

“At least in America, you lose your house, you can get it back from the bank. In Israel, you lose it to the rockets.”
― Joshua Cohen, Moving Kings

“The demolition of the Space industry is on my RADAR.”
― Steven Magee

“Rockets are the most dangerous form of transportation.”
― Steven Magee

“And it is a nerve-wracking experience to put your ear against a propellant tank and hear it go "glub" -long pause- "glub" and so on. After such an experience many people, myself (particularly) included, tended to look dubiously at peroxide and to pass it by on the other side.”
― John D. Clark, Ignition!: An informal history of liquid rocket propellants

“All the months of calm dispassionate analysis give way to a few minutes of emotion, an outburst of hope and horror as the inert beast comes alive for the first time, shakes itself and its new-found tail of fire, and starts slowly-so slowly-to move. For the first few seconds it is purely a spectacle, for with the eyes alone involved, one can see but not succumb. But when the great crackling Mach 1 roar arrives, and the very ground under you shakes, then you are there, you are part of it, and you laugh or cry or yell or whisper”
― Michael Collins

“You are easily misled if you think development of Space is a harmless activity.”
― Steven Magee

“Not today, we don't. "

Final panel, final page, 'Not Today, You Don't' by Xaime, Love And Rockets, Volume IV, #14.”
― Jaime Hernández

“For the better part of seven decades, watching rockets launch from Cape Canaveral has been a major tourist attraction, a favorite activity of locals, and a taken-for-granted part of Florida life. Few experiences in this lifetime are as awe-inspiring as watching a rocket launch not more than five miles from the launch site. When NASA lights the fuse on these babies, the solid rocket boosters blast the payload into space with several million pounds of thrust. Words cannot adequately describe the sight, sound, and feel of one of these events-- like the Grand Canyon and oral sex, it must be experienced to be appreciated.”
― James D. Wright, A Florida State of Mind: An Unnatural History of Our Weirdest State