“Progress requires setbacks the only sure way to avoid failure is not to try. ”

“The Orion capsule uses an escape system quite like that of the Apollo spacecraft in the 1960s and 70s: an 'escape tower' containing a solid-fuel rocket that will pull it up and away from Ares I in ...”

“Whether solid rockets are more or less likely to fail than liquid-fuel rockets is debatable. More serious, though, is that when they do fail, it's usually violent and spectacular.”

“Sometimes people wonder why aeroplanes are so cheap and rockets are so expensive. Even the most superficial comparison shows one obvious difference: aeroplane engines use outside air to burn their ...”

“Reusable rockets promise much easier testing because you should usually get them back, and you can debug as you go rather than having to get everything perfect the first time.”

“In 1960-61, a small group of female pilots went through many of the same medical tests as the Mercury astronauts and scored very well on them - in fact, better than some of the astronauts did.”

“So imagine that the lovely moon is playing just for you - everything makes music if you really want it to.”

“I swear that girl was born with a pen in her hand, the moon in her hair and stars in her soul.”

“We ran as if to meet the moon.”

“Heaven is under our feet as well as over our heads.”

“Wherever forests have not been mowed down, wherever the animal is recessed in their quiet protection, wherever the earth is not bereft of four-footed life - that to the white man is an 'unbroken wi...”

“Earth is the holiest place in the Universe, loving the earth, and loving life is the way to generate positive vibrations.”

“I'm so close to Schiaparelli I can taste it. I guess it would taste like sand, mostly, but that's not the point.”

“If democracy and self-rule are the fundamentals, then why should people give up these rights when they enter their workplace? In politics we fight like tigers for freedom, for the right to elect ou...”

“NASA are idiots. They want to send canned primates to Mars!" Manfred swallows a mouthful of beer, aggressively plonks his glass on the table: "Mars is just dumb mass at the bottom of a gravity well...”