I really hate to be put in the position of trying to justify something, a decision that was made. I'm a military guy: when a decision is made, I go along with it, whatever the manufactured controversy and criticism.
— Buzz Aldrin
To me, money is a commodity that a person must have to function, not a goal in itself.
I think the American Dream used to be achieving one's goals in your field of choice - and from that, all other things would follow. Now, I think the dream has morphed into the pursuit of money: Accumulate enough of it, and the rest will follow.
I understand that Detroit was a pretty rough place to grow up in the '70s and '80s.
People come up to me and say, 'It's too bad the space program got canceled.' This is not the case, and yet that is what most of the public thinks has happened.
When President Kennedy took office, I was in the midst of my education.
The moon I see now is the same moon I saw before. Except that before, when I looked at it, it was in anticipation of what it would be like when I got there. That's behind me now.
People communicate in Twittering ways. I've learned how to do that.
American greatness was elevated significantly after Sputnik.
I don't watch 'American Idol,' but I wouldn't call it 'undignified.'
Over the years, I think I've matured in my spiritual evolution and development to understand a bit more than the narrow religious thinking - to move beyond that through a sort of perfection of the grandiose nature of the universe, and how perfect it is it in its sense and how satisfied we should all be in our place in that.
There's no guarantee that the United States will be around 200 years from now.
I don't think we're going to build a 50-person spacecraft or a 100-person spacecraft.
Heavy lifting doesn't need to be heavy spending if we do the job right.
With his deeds, not only words, President Obama has revitalized our struggling space program.
Having walked on the Moon, I know something about what we need to explore, really explore, in space.
I'm urging NASA to foster the development of what I call 'runway landers.' No, that's not the name of a high stakes gambler from Vegas. It's a type of spacecraft that flies to orbit like the retiring Shuttles but then glides to a landing like an airplane on a runway. Just like the Shuttles do.
During the divorce process, I lived alone and tended to get extremely down on myself.
My own American Dream was to serve my country as best I could and make a difference in America - and in the world.
I grew up in New Jersey and never went up the Statue of Liberty.
A hybrid human-robot mission to investigate an asteroid affords a realistic opportunity to demonstrate new technological capabilities for future deep-space travel and to test spacecraft for long-duration spaceflight.
I want people to go into space, to orbit around the world a few times, even to stay there for 24 hours and then come back to where they took off. And I also want people with a low income to be able to do that, not only rich people.
Is the destiny of the human species to sit back and play with our mouse and computer and imagine, fantasize?
I don't go through life verbalizing what I feel.
Us reaching the moon convinced Gorbachev and other leaders that the Soviet Union couldn't compete with the U.S., so they revised their agenda. But people have short memories.
When we can demonstrate that we can take off horizontally and put something into orbit, then we can begin to talk about increasing the amount of payload. But to say, 'I'm going to do that and put people into orbit' is a real leap.
There may be aliens in our Milky Way galaxy, and there are billions of other galaxies. The probability is almost certain that there is life somewhere in space.
Space is not just going up and coming back down again. Space is getting into orbit and being there, living there, establishing a presence, a permanence.
Human rights problems will always exist for years to come, but maybe they'll lessen somewhat.
There should be an international lunar base. That is certainly doable.
Save the taxpayer's money by canceling the Ares 1 and V.
When the time comes to start building deep space transports and refueling rocket tankers, it will be the commercial industry that steps up, not another government-owned, government-managed enterprise.
As someone who flew two space capsules and twice landed in the ocean, I can attest from personal experience how much logistics work is needed to get you home.
What's aero braking? That's a way to use the gravity and upper atmosphere of Earth to sling shot a ship out either deeper into space, or slow it down to be 'captured' by Earth's gravity.
Because of his military service, Dad was buried in Arlington National Cemetery.
I still say, 'Shoot for the moon; you might get there.'
I failed music when I was a teenager.
Does it make sense for the U.S. to expend hundreds of billions of dollars to mount a new Apollo-style program to return to the moon? Or have we blazed that trail? Shouldn't we help other nations achieve this goal with their own resources but with our help?
I am definitely not rich.
A mind concerned about danger is a clouded mind. It's paralyzing.
America can take man to the moon, and America can take men to Mars - and beyond.
I shot down two airplanes in Korea, so I wasn't a slouch.
I think the people who experienced the Apollo missions came away from that experience wondering to themselves, 'When can we get a chance to experience spaceflight?' I've heard that many, many times: that people got into a new career field hoping that they would be able to experience spaceflight.
Extraordinary observations require extraordinary evidence.
I think we need to move to the moons of Mars and learn how to control robots that are on the surface. It's not the impatient way of getting there, but Mars has been there a long time.
The way I see it, what is going to come out of the moon activities is a respect for U.S. leadership.
Not everyone will understand this need for America to lead the world in space.
The much-hyped Ares 1-X was much ado about nothing.
Before deciding what to do about national space policy, Obama set up an outside review panel of space experts, headed up by my friend Norm Augustine, former head of Lockheed Martin and a former government official.
Landing in the ocean and waiting for the Navy to come alongside and haul you out of the drink is what space capsules require. And after the capsule is recovered, it would take weeks for the ship to return to port.
