Apollo 11 landed on the moon on July 20, 1969. These are some quotes about space.
The Saturn V rocket was piloted by astronauts Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins (among others!) and launched from the Kennedy Space Center at 9:32 a.m. EDT, landing the moon module (the Eagle) at 4:18 p.m. EDT.
Neil Armstrong stepped down the ladder in front of a live television audience of more than half a billion people and declared, “That’s one little step for a man, one huge leap for mankind.”
Soon after, Aldrin joined him, giving the folks back home a simple but dramatic assessment of the moon’s surface: “magnificent desolation.”
” The astronauts spent two and a half hours exploring the lunar surface, taking photos, and collecting samples.
The crew left an American flag, a patch honoring the Apollo 1 crew, and a plaque on one of the Eagle’s legs behind before returning to Earth. “Here, men from the planet Earth first set foot on the moon,” it says. The year was 1969 A.D., and it was July. We came to bring peace to all of humanity.”
As the world responded to President John F. Kennedy’s call to America to “commit itself to attain the objective, before the end of this decade, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to Earth,” their successful mission was the fruition of both large goals and hard effort. (25th of May, 1961)
The spectacular moon landing will be commemorated for the 50th time in 2019. We’ve gathered the best space quotes in one spot in celebration of all those who dared to dream of seeing a planet beyond this one.
100+ Top Quotes about Space
Space Quotes from Astrophysicists
The Earth is the cradle of humanity, but mankind cannot stay in the cradle forever.__Konstantin Tsiolkovsky
Love one another, but make not a bond of love:
Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.― Khalil Gibran
Not just beautiful, though–the stars are like the trees in the forest, alive and breathing. And they’re watching me.― Haruki Murakami
Stuart needs “space” and “time,” as if this were physics and not a human relationship.― Kathryn Stockett
Depression isn’t a war you win. It’s a battle you fight every day. You never stop, never get to rest. It’s one bloody fray after another.― Shaun David Hutchinson
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, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win.__John F. Kennedy
I saw the world from the stars’ point of view, and it looked unbearably lonely.― Shaun David Hutchinson
Space is for everybody. It’s not just for a few people in science or math, or for a select group of astronauts. That’s our new frontier out there, and it’s everybody’s business to know about space.___Christa McAuliffe
All civilizations become either spacefaring or extinct. – Carl Sagan
Mankind is drawn to the heavens for the same reason we were once drawn into unknown lands and across the open sea. We choose to explore space because doing so improves our lives, and lifts our national spirit. So let us continue the journey.____George W. Bush
Real museums are places where Time is transformed into Space.― Orhan Pamuk
The exploration of space will go ahead, whether we join in it or not, and it is one of the great adventures of all time, and no nation which expects to be the leader of other nations can expect to stay behind in the race for space.___John F. Kennedy
Those who came before us made certain that this country rode the first waves of the industrial revolutions, the first waves of modern invention, and the first wave of nuclear power, and this generation does not intend to founder in the backwash of the coming age of space. We mean to be a part of it–we mean to lead it. For the eyes of the world now look into space, to the moon and to the planets beyond, and we have vowed that we shall not see it governed by a hostile flag of conquest, but by a banner of freedom and peace. We have vowed that we shall not see space filled with weapons of mass destruction, but with instruments of knowledge and understanding.___John F. Kennedy
It’s so stupid because all I wanted was space and now that I have it, there’s this part of me that’s achingly lonely I could die.― Hannah Harrington
Without pain, without sacrifice we would have nothing. Like the first monkey shot into space.― Chuck Palahniuk
I believe that space travel will one day become as common as airline travel is today. I’m convinced, however, that the true future of space travel does not lie with government agencies — NASA is still obsessed with the idea that the primary purpose of the space program is science — but real progress will come from private companies competing to provide the ultimate adventure ride, and NASA will receive the trickle-down benefits.___Buzz Aldrin
We’re not words, Henry, we’re people.
Words are how others define us, but we can define ourselves any way we choose.― Shaun David Hutchinson
How dare you open a spaceman’s helmet on an uncharted planet? My eyeballs could’ve been sucked from their sockets!― Cathy East Dubowski
On one side are those who believe space travel is difficult work, but who go for it anyway. On the other are those who believe caring for a goldfish is, and who don’t go after much of anything. Where we choose to seed ourselves on the spectrum of what’s possible is what will ultimately define the size of our lives.____Mary-Jo Dionne
In the space between chaos and shape there was another chance.― Jeanette Winterson
Human exploration and colonization of Mars will keep us busy for hundreds, even thousands, of years. During that time, there will be advances in nanotechnology, space sailing, robotics, biomolecular engineering, and artificial intelligence. These advances are occurring even now, affecting our outlook about what it means to be human and engage in human activity. Those technologies will not merely allow us to stay home on Earth and Mars, but our minds will extend our presence throughout the universe so that we will not need or want to extend our bodies there — even if we could, which I think is doubtful.___Louis Friedman
The time will come when man will know even what is going on in the other planets and perhaps be able to visit them. – Henry Ford
Quotes from Astronauts
It’s astonishing to think that people who’ve spent time in space, looking at the Earth, the stars, and other planets, are now walking among us and leading normal lives. These quotes explain what inspired them to take to the skies, how our planet seems from space, and what spaceflight has learned about life on Earth.
Never limit yourself because of others’ limited imagination; never limit others because of your own limited imagination.___Mae Jemison
I know the sky is not the limit because there are footprints on the Moon — and I made some of them!___Buzz Aldrin
I suppose the one quality in an astronaut more powerful than any other is curiosity. They have to get some place nobody’s ever been. – John Glenn
To some this may look like a sunset. But it’s a new dawn.___Chris Hadfield
You develop an instant global consciousness, a people orientation, an intense dissatisfaction with the state of the world, and a compulsion to do something about it. From out there on the moon, international politics look so petty. You want to grab a politician by the scruff of the neck and drag him a quarter of a million miles out and say, ‘Look at that, you son of a bitch.’___Edgar Mitchell
It suddenly struck me that that tiny pea, pretty and blue, was the Earth. I put up my thumb and shut one eye, and my thumb blotted out the planet Earth. I didn’t feel like a giant. I felt very, very small.___Neil Armstrong
Earth is a small town with many neighborhoods in a very big universe.___Ron Garan
I looked and looked but I didn’t see God.
Curiosity is the essence of our existence. – Gene Cernan
I am also planning to leave a lot of things undone. Part of life’s mystery depends on future possibilities, and mystery is an elusive quality which evaporates when sampled frequently, to be followed by boredom. For example, catching various types of fish is on my list of good things to do, but I would be reluctant to rush into it, even if i had the time. I want no part of destroying fishing as a mysterious sport.___Michael Collins
Gravity hurts.___Viktor Alexandrov
In the van, we can see the rocket in the distance, lit up and shining, an obelisk. In reality, of course, it’s a 4.5-megaton bomb loaded with explosive fuel, which is why everyone else is driving away from it.___Chris Hadfield
I find it curious that I never heard any astronaut say that he wanted to go to the Moon so he would be able to look back and see the Earth. We all wanted to see what the Moon looked like close up. Yet, for most of us, the most memorable sight was not of the Moon but of our beautiful blue and white home, moving majestically around the sun, all alone and infinite black space.___Alan Bean
We are limited only by our imagination and our will to act.___Ron Garan
The first day or so we all pointed to our countries. The third or fourth day we were pointing to our continents. By the fifth day we were only aware of one Earth.” – Sultan Bin Salman al-Suad
I thought the attractions of being an astronaut were actually, not so much the moon, but flying in a completely new medium.___Neil Armstrong
When I first looked back at the Earth, standing on the Moon, I cried.___Alan Shepherd
Anyone who sits on top of the largest hydrogen-oxygen fueled system in the world, knowing they’re going to light the bottom, and doesn’t get a little worried, does not fully understand the situation.___John Young
The scenery was very beautiful. But I did not see The Great Wall.___Yang Liwei
The Earth was small, light blue, and so touchingly alone, our home that must be defended like a holy relic. The Earth was absolutely round. I believe I never knew what the word round meant until I saw Earth from space.___Alexi Leonov
Space in Popular Culture
Our curiosity with space, the universe, and our role in it extends beyond what we know and can prove. It has made its way into literature, music, television, and film, providing new perspectives on past space missions, images of new worlds, and ideas of a future outside our solar system.
From Ray Bradbury’s and Arthur C. Clarke’s novels to the Doctor Who series and David Bowie’s famous Space Oddity, mainstream culture provides a glimpse into what we aspire to find beyond the stars, as well as what we fear.
Space or science fiction has become a dialect for our time.___Doris Lessing
In the past, it was only in science fiction novels that you could read about ordinary people being able to go to space… But you laid the foundation for space tourism.___Nursultan Nazarbayev
900 years of time and space and I’ve never met anyone who wasn’t important.___Doctor Who
In science fiction, we dream. In order to colonize in space, to rebuild our cities, which are so far out of whack, to tackle any number of problems, we must imagine the future, including the new technologies that are required.___Ray Bradbury
Love is the one thing we’re capable of perceiving that transcends dimensions of time and space. Maybe we should trust that, even if we can’t understand it. – Interstellar
We cannot predict the new forces, powers, and discoveries that will be disclosed to us when we reach the other planets and set up new laboratories in space. They are as much beyond our vision today as fire or electricity would be beyond the imagination of a fish.___Arthur C. Clarke
All of time and space, everywhere and anywhere, every star that ever was. Where do you want to start? – Doctor Who
I’m sure the universe is full of intelligent life. It’s just been too intelligent to come here.___Arthur C. Clarke
It’s a fixer-upper of a planet but we could make it work.__Elon Musk on Inhabiting Mars
Space travels in my blood / There ain’t nothing I can do about it / Long journeys wear me out / But I know I can’t live without it, oh no__The Only Ones, Another Girl Another Planet
The function of science fiction is not always to predict the future, but sometimes to prevent it.___Frank Herbert
Mars has been flown by, orbited, smacked into, radar examined, and rocketed onto, as well as bounced upon, rolled over, shoveled, drilled into, baked and even blasted. Still to come: Mars being stepped on.___Buzz Aldrin
The stars don’t look bigger, but they do look brighter.– Sally Ride
The Earth reminded us of a Christmas tree ornament hanging in the blackness of space. As we got farther and farther away it diminished in size. Finally, it shrank to the size of a marble, the most beautiful marble you can imagine. That beautiful, warm, living object looked so fragile, so delicate, that if you touched it with a finger it would crumble and fall apart.___James Irwin
Suddenly, from behind the rim of the moon, in long, slow-motion moments of immense majesty, there emerges a sparkling blue and white jewel, a light, delicate sky-blue sphere laced with slowly swirling veils of white, rising gradually like a small pearl in a thick sea of black mystery. It takes more than a moment to fully realize this is Earth… home.___Edgar Mitchell
What everyone in the astronaut corps shares in common is not gender or ethnic background, but motivation, perseverance, and desire — the desire to participate in a voyage of discovery.___Ellen Ochoa
To become an astronaut is not a question of being the best at something or things coming easy to you, but it’s being a person that can work with others and not give up. And, for me, that was part of it too.___Michael J. Massimino
I must admit, maybe I am a piece of history after all. – Allan Shepard
It’s easy to sleep floating around — it’s very comfortable. But you have to be careful that you don’t float into somebody or something!___James Irwin
Earth is a small town with many neighborhoods in a very big universe.___Ron Garan
Any astronaut can tell you you’ve got to do everything you can to learn about your life support system and then do everything you can to take care of it.___Sylvia Earle
Astronauts are inherently insane. And really noble.___Andy Weir
I don’t know what you could say about a day in which you have seen four beautiful sunsets.___John Glenn
Of course risk is part of spaceflight. We accept some of that to achieve greater goals in exploration and find out more about ourselves and the universe.___Lisa Nowak
Astronauts are like these mythic legends, but really, they are just regular people, people who wear chinos. – Mary Roach
Space Quotes from Astrophysicists
From Galileo Galilei’s early 17th-century observations of a heliocentric solar system to Einstein’s Theory of Relativity and Stephen Hawking’s A Brief History of Time, space has piqued the interest of some of history’s greatest minds.
The brightest minds in space research have communicated their findings in ways that are accessible to anyone interested in learning more about the universe. They’ve brought together the “great questions” in science, such as how the cosmos works, our solar system’s purpose, and our place within it. Here are a few of their most memorable and fascinating quotes!
One of the basic rules of the universe is that nothing is perfect. Perfection simply doesn’t exist…..Without imperfection, neither you nor I would exist.___Stephen Hawking
I don’t think the human race will survive the next 1,000 years, unless we spread into space. There are too many accidents that can befall life on a single planet. But I’m an optimist. We will reach out to the stars.___Stephen Hawking
Because there is a law such as gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing. – Stephen Hawking
Remember to look up at the stars and not down at your feet. Try to make sense of what you see and wonder about what makes the Universe exist. Be curious. And however difficult life may seem, there is always something you can do and succeed at. It matters that you don’t just give up.___Stephen Hawking
When forced to summarize the general theory of relativity in one sentence: Time and space and gravitation have no separate existence from matter.___Albert Einstein
In the context of general relativity, space almost is a substance. It can bend and twist and stretch, and probably the best way to think about space is to just kind of imagine a big piece of rubber that you can pull and twist and bend.___Alan Guth
However we select from nature a complex [of phenomena] using the criterion of simplicity, in no case will its theoretical treatment turn out to be forever appropriate (sufficient)…. I do not doubt that the day will come when [general relativity], too, will have to yield to another one, for reasons which at present we do not yet surmise. I believe that this process of deepening theory has no limits.___Albert Einstein
Most of what Einstein said and did has no direct impact on what anybody reads in the Bible. Special relativity, his work in quantum mechanics, nobody even knows or cares. Where Einstein really affects the Bible is the fact that general relativity is the organizing principle for the Big Bang.___Neil deGrasse Tyson
For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.___Carl Sagan
I speak now not as a planetary scientist but as someone who has colleagues who are planetary scientists and this is what they told me. Who doesn’t want to go to Europa? The problem is the technology to enable that is not yet available. And so if you direct monies to go to Europa prematurely and you find out that it fails, for whatever reason, it would not have been an effective investment of your money. So you say, “Well, we can try to go to Europa, but it might fail, or maybe the technology won’t come for yet another decade or we know how to get to Mars. We know how to do air bags and drop rovers and those sort of things, so let’s do that.” So we’re prioritizing not so much the science but we’re prioritizing what’s doable.___Neil deGrasse Tyson
Across the sea of space, the stars are other suns. – Carl Sagan
By denying scientific principles, one may maintain any paradox.___Galileo Galilei
Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I’m not sure about the universe. – Albert Einstein
For every one billion particles of antimatter there were one billion and one particles of matter. And when the mutual annihilation was complete, one billionth remained – and that’s our present universe.___Albert Einstein
Einstein was searching for String Theory. It not only reconciles General Relativity to Quantum Mechanics, but it reconciles Science and the Bible as well.___Roy H. Williams
In my studies of astronomy and philosophy I hold this opinion about the universe, that the Sun remains fixed in the centre of the circle of heavenly bodies, without changing its place; and the Earth, turning upon itself, moves round the Sun.___Galileo Galilei
The cosmos is within us. We are made of star-stuff. We are a way for the universe to know itself.___Carl Sagan
To confine our attention to terrestrial matters would be to limit the human spirit.___Stephen Hawking
My goal is simple. It is a complete understanding of the universe, why it is as it is and why it exists at all.___Stephen Hawking
Once you can accept the universe as matter expanding into nothing that is something, wearing stripes with plaid comes easy.___Albert Einstein
Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known.___Carl Sagan
Cosmology does, I think, affect the way that we perceive humanity’s role in nature. One thing we’ve learnt from astronomy is that the future lying ahead is more prolonged than the past. Even our sun is less than halfway through its life.___Neil deGrasse Tyson
Who is more humble? The scientist who looks at the universe with an open mind and accepts whatever the universe has to teach us, or somebody who says everything in this book must be considered the literal truth and never mind the fallibility of all the human beings involved?___Carl Sagan
We are all connected; to each other, biologically, to the earth, chemically, to the universe atomically. – Neil deGrasse Tyson
His conflict with the Catholic Church arose because deep in his heart Galileo was a believer. There was for him no path of compromise, no way to have separate secular and theological cosmologies. If the Copernican system was true as he believed, what else could Galileo do but fight with every weapon he had in his arsenal of logic, rhetoric, scientific observation, mathematical theory, and cunning insight, to make his Church accept a new system of the universe?___Bernard Cohen
The sun, with all those planets revolving around it and dependent on it, can still ripen a bunch of grapes as if it had nothing else in the universe to do.” – Galileo Galilei
Looking up into the night sky is looking into infinity – distance is incomprehensible and therefore meaningless.____Douglas Adams, A Hitch-hikers Guide to the Galaxy
I’m floating in a most peculiar way / And the stars look very different today / For here Am I sitting in a tin can / Far above the world / Planet Earth is blue / And there’s nothing I can do.__David Bowie, Space Oddity