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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.
Push
Speculated
Avoid
Hoped
Finally
Quarter
Century
Occurred
Forever
Managed
Space
Quarters
Back
Exploration
Talked

More quotes by John Glenn

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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
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I think we're a long ways from really putting colonies of people out there who would live their whole lives out there in space. I don't see that happening for quite some time.
John Glenn
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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
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I hate to think that we may be out there seven to ten years out and dependent on the Russians for our journey into space.
John Glenn
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When others kid me about being bald, I simply tell them that the way I figure it, the good Lord only gave men so many hormones, and if others want to waste theirs on growing hair, that's up to them.
John Glenn
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I think no matter where we go in space to me the important thing is not only getting there and getting back, but it's also doing research, because that opens up as a possibility with that new distance of travel in space.
John Glenn
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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
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That was a real fireball.
John Glenn
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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
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If there is one thing I’ve learned in my years on this planet, it’s that the happiest and most fulfilled people I’ve known are those who devoted themselves to something bigger and more profound than merely their own self interest.
John Glenn
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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
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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
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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
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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
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I don't know what you could say about a day in which you have seen four beautiful sunsets.
John Glenn
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Too many people, when they get old, think that they have to live by the calendar.
John Glenn
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There is still no cure for the common birthday.
John Glenn
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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
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Because now, you know, it's going to be a number of years yet before we have our own new boosters and new spacecraft to go to our own International Space Station and proceed with all the research that we spent $100 billion putting up there to give us that research capability for the future for people right here on Earth.
John Glenn
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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