” Is manned space exploration important? Yes – not least because it simply works much better than sending robots. “
” Supplying fuel for a Mars expedition from the lunar surface is often suggested, but it’s hard to make it pay off – Moon bases are expensive, and just buying more rockets to launch fuel from Earth is relatively cheap. “
” Not until the space shuttle started flying did NASA concede that some astronauts didn’t have to be fast-jet pilots. And at that point, sure enough, women started becoming astronauts. “
” 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 a pinch. “
” 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 fuel, while rockets have to carry their own oxidisers along. “
All 6 Henry Spencer Quotes about Space in picture




Topics: Space quotes