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This is a day we have managed to avoid for a quarter of a century. We've talked about it before and speculated about it, and it finally has occurred. We hoped we could push this day back forever.
John Glenn
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John Glenn
Age: 95 †
Born: 1921
Born: July 18
Died: 2016
Died: December 8
Aircraft Pilot
Astronaut
Businessperson
Former United States Senator
Military Officer
Politician
Screenwriter
Test Pilot
Cambridge
Ohio
John Herschel Glenn Jr.
Finally
Quarter
Century
Occurred
Forever
Managed
Space
Quarters
Back
Exploration
Talked
Push
Speculated
Avoid
Hoped
More quotes by John Glenn
We used to joke about canned men, putting people in a can and seeing how far you can send them and bring them back. That's not the purpose of this program... Space is a laboratory, and we go into it to work and learn the new.
John Glenn
America is in a newly competitive position around the world, and unless we keep our lead in education for all of our people and do the research along with that, other nations will start outdoing us and they will be leaders in the world.
John Glenn
Liftoff is very, very gentle, contrary to what most people think. Because you remember, the weight of the booster - the amount of thrust on the engine is just barely enough to get the booster underway. And so it's a very gentle liftoff, contrary to what most people think when they see all the fire and smoke of launch.
John Glenn
America put more money into research, into the new and the unknown than any nation in history, and the same thing with education, and those two things led us into a worldwide preeminence in a very short period of time.
John Glenn
It was the time of the Cold War and so there were was a lot of pressure on the - to get going and the Russians were claiming that they were - Soviets were claiming they were ahead of us in technology. And so it was against that backdrop that the early space flights took off.
John Glenn
There had been a number of failures but we weren't going out to ride a failure. And we felt they'd corrected all the difficulties with the boosters before that time and the launch problems. And so we had a lot of confidence that there was going to be a successful mission. We weren't off on some suicide effort, certainly.
John Glenn
I am a stranger. I come in peace. Take me to your leader and there will be a massive reward for you in eternity.
John Glenn
To get your name well enough known that you can run for a public office, some people do it by being great lawyers or philanthropists or business people or work their way up the political ladder. I happened to become known from a different route.
John Glenn
That whole day [ of the space flight] is very vividly impressed on my memory because it was such a new experience. We hadn't done that before. And then I've recalled it so often since then I think that it's a - it's remained very vivid over the past 50 years, seems to me like about a week or two instead of 50 years.
John Glenn
Too many people, when they get old, think that they have to live by the calendar.
John Glenn
We're going to go to the moon. We're going to go on to Mars. We're going to set up a base on the moon. OK, but no money to pay for it, nothing in the budget for it. And so the decision made at that time was to cancel the whole shuttle program to save money, which I think was very, very short sighted.
John Glenn
We had a lot of confidence that there was going to be a successful mission. We weren't off on some suicide effort, certainly [with Friendship 7].
John Glenn
Zero G and I feel fine.
John Glenn
To sit back and let fate play its hand out and never influence it is not the way man was meant to operate.
John Glenn
If we could do something that enhances the body's immune system here on Earth, it would be a tremendous step forward in the fight against disease and cancer and other things.
John Glenn
The moment of twilight is simply beautiful.
John Glenn
As far as actually setting up colonies of people who would live their whole lives in space, I think we're a long ways from doing that yet, and I think we have many, many decades before we could be able to even consider something like that.
John Glenn
Just because I'm 77 doesn't mean I don't have a dream.
John Glenn
I think that it's good for us to be able to travel in space and do research in space, and I emphasize the research, because space travel to me is far more than just seeing how far we can go.
John Glenn
The most important thing we can do is inspire young minds and to advance the kind of science, math and technology education that will help youngsters take us to the next phase of space travel.
John Glenn
