EYES TURNED SKYWARD
EARTH ORBIT QUOTES
We’ve always been looking up at the heavens, and once we had rockets man could start going up. The first step to the stars is to orbit our Earth. This page of my space quotes collection covers the start of the 1960’s space race, including the Mercury and Gemini progams. There are seperate pages for space shuttle quotes and man’s thoughts looking back at Earth.
beep beep beep
The beep heard around the would was an on and off tone transmitted on 20.005 and 40.002 MHz in 0.3 second pulses from the Sputnik 1 satellite, 4 October 1957. Changes in the onboard temperature or pressure could trigger changes in the length of the beep. It transmitted for three weeks before its three silver-zinc batteries became depleted. The satellite fell back into the atmosphere on 4 January 1958.
Poyekhali!
(In English, “Let’s Go!” or “Let’s Roll!”)
Yuri Gagarin, at liftoff of his Vostok 1 capsule, 09:07 Moscow Time, 12 April 1961.
...the flight is continuing well. I can see the Earth. The visibility is good.... I almost see everything. There's a certain amount of space under cumulus cloud cover. I continue the flight, everything is good.
Yuri Gagarin, man’s first words from space, Vostok 1, 09:13 Moscow Time, 12 April 1961.
Putting a man in space is a stunt: the man can do no more than an instrument, in fact can do less. There are far more serious things to do than indulge in stunts… . I do not discard completely the value of demonstrating to the world our skills. Nor do I undervalue the effect on morale of the spectacular. But the present hullabaloo on the propaganda aspects of the program leaves me entirely cool.
Vannevar Bush, chairman of the Board of Governors of MIT, in a statement to the House Committee on Science and Astronautics. Reported in Scientific American, June 1960.
Didn’t see what you were looking for? There are loads more quotes on the Airport page, the 9/11 aviation quotations page, and the Miscellaneous Aviation Quotes page. Or try a search of the entire database:
