Buzz Aldrin
Training was very extensive, and we dealt with many recoveries from emergencies, and fortunately, participating and observing and existing through the reality of space was a once-in-a-lifetime experience and it was not marred by unexpected hazards or catastrophes.Collection: Recovery
There is very little doubt, in my mind, that what the next monumental achievement of humanity will be the first landing by an Earthling, a human being, on the planet Mars.Collection: Achievement
Mars is the symbolic and totally stimulating next objective that could so dominate the next century's exploration efforts. From Mars, the resources of all the asteroids will become readily available.Collection: Effort
Drive over to the nearest airport, and enroll in flight classes. You will experience the joy of freedom in the air above, as you study the mechanics of how this is made possible by understanding the construction, the laws of motion, the air that can provide lift when it is moved by propulsion through the air, and stay above the gravity pulling the airplane back down to earth.Collection: Airplane
I think I need to continue to think and plan and marry all of the different things that we could do that make transportation in space from the earth to the space station, from the earth to the moon to space stations around the moon to visiting an asteroid.Collection: Moon
I would rather people understand that there is a very, very fortunate American who was given the opportunity, and was in the right place at the right time to have the moment of a lifetime. My mother was born - her name was Marianne Moon. And she was born in 1903, the year that the Wright Brothers first flew.Collection: Mother
I participated with great honor in becoming one of the first to land on the moon, and now I am devoting and have devoted many years of my life to enabling Americans to lead international nations to permanence on the planet Mars.Collection: Moon
In Mars, we've been given a wonderful set of moons where we can send continuous numbers of people.Collection: Moon
The universe is the way it is. It's not going to be changed by supplications.Collection: Way
For every winner, there's a loser. And that person didn't really need to lose. They just didn't understand the game plan.Collection: Games
When we set out to land people on the surface of Mars, I think we should as a nation, as a world, commit ourselves to supporting a growing settlement and colonization there. To visit a few times and then withdraw would be an unforgivable waste of resources.Collection: Thinking
My sister called me "Buzzard" when I was a baby - she couldn't say "Brother" so I've been Buzz my whole life.Collection: Baby
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.Collection: Space
They didn’t tell me I was going into space until after they locked the shuttle doors and started counting down.Collection: Doors
I expected the unexpected and went [on the Moon] with an open mind. I think the visual scene was described by my words on first landing - "magnificent desolation." Magnificent for the achievement of being there, and desolate for the eons of lifelessness.Collection: Thinking
We feel that this stands as a symbol of the insatiable curiosity of all mankind to explore the unknown.Collection: Curiosity
The urge to explore has propelled evolution since the first water creatures reconnoitered the land. Like all living systems, cultures cannot remain static; they evolve or decline. They explore or expire. . . . Beyond all rationales, space flight is a spiritual quest in the broadest sense, one promising a revitalization of humanity and a rebirth of hope no less profound than the great opening out of mind and spirit at the dawn of our modern age.Collection: Spiritual
The g-forces increased and I wasn't able to continue to hold the camera against the window, so I had to lay it back against my chest, but still continued to photograph the re-entry until there was no more unusual visual effects of the energy in the atmosphere. And it was very comforting to understand that the people in Houston, the controllers, had very high confidence that we were on the right path.Collection: People
At the core of the risk-free society is a self-indulgent failure of nerve.Collection: Self
I was given permission to serve myself Communion, with wine and a wafer, on the surface on the Moon. But I was advised not to say anything about it at the time. Someone had strongly objected to the Apollo 8 crew reading from the Bible. We didn't want to get into any further trouble with the religious critics.Collection: Religious
When I am getting ready to cross a street, I look both ways before crossing. My bones, my muscles, are not what they used to be, so I am careful when I go up and down stairs, because I've heard stories of older people falling and having very disabling injuries. I have enough things that begin to go a little bit wrong as I get a little bit older.Collection: Fall
I inherited depression from my mother's side of the family. Her father committed suicide. She committed suicide the year before I went to the moon.Collection: Depression
It's been one of the greatest challenges that ever came along in my life; it was one of the more difficult things to do.Collection: Addiction
I poured the wine into the chalice our church had given me. In the one-sixth gravity of the moon the wine curled slowly and gracefully up the side of the cup. It was interesting to think that the very first liquid ever poured on the moon, and the first food eaten there, were communion elements.Collection: Wine
Apollo 11 will probably go down in history as one of the major responses of two nations facing each other with threatening technologies - sometimes called mutually assured destruction. It was also the America's response to the apparent superiority of the Russians in putting objects into space before USA could.Collection: Technology
There are a lot of reasons for not doing something. And if humanity had come up with all the reasons for not doing something we wouldn't have spread across the Earth the way we have. There's a curiosity, and I would submit that that curiosity will put human beings on the surface of Mars.Collection: Humanity
Unfortunately, pioneers will always pave the way with sacrifices.Collection: Sacrifice
America must dream again, and have the faith to achieve the dream.Collection: Dream
This has been far more than three men on a mission to the Moon; more still than the efforts of a government and industry team; more, even, than the efforts of one nation. We feel this stands as a symbol of the insatiable curiosity of all mankind to explore the unknown.Collection: Team
Once you’ve been first, it cannot be done again. Not by you, not by anyone else.Collection: Firsts
Computers allow us to squeeze the most out of everything, whether it’s Google looking up things, so I guess that tends to make us a little lazy about reading books and doing things the hard way to understand how those things work.Collection: Reading