Outer Space

931 – Robert Heinlein on Patriotism

“The next level in moral behavior higher than that exhibited by the baboon is that in which duty and loyalty are shown toward a group of your own kind too large for an individual to know all of them. We have a name for that. It is called ‘patriotism.’
Behaving on a still higher moral level were the astronauts who went to the Moon, for their actions tend toward the survival of the entire race of mankind. The door they opened leads to the hope that H. sapiens will survive indefinitely long, even longer than this solid planet on which we stand tonight. As a direct result of what they did, it is now possible that the human race will never die.
Many short-sighted fools think that going to the Moon was just a stunt. But the astronauts knew the meaning of what they were doing, as is shown by Neil Armstrong’s first words in stepping down onto the soil of Luna: ‘One small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind.'”

-Robert Heinlein

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911 – “When you’re finally up at the Moon looking back on Earth, all those differences and nationalistic traits are pretty well going to blend, and you’re going to get a concepts that maybe this really is one world and why the hell can’t we learn to live together like decent people?”

-Frank Borman [Unreliable Source]

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910 – “That’s one small step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind.”

-Neil Armstrong

… Commander Armstrong stepped off of the ladder to these words. With that small step Humankind was the first in becoming interstellar beings. Far into the future, that day in 1969, will be remembered.

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909 – “This nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the earth. No single space project in this period will be more impressive to mankind, or more important for the long-range exploration of space; and none will be so difficult or expensive to accomplish. … But in a very real sense, it will not be one man going to the moon — if we make this judgment affirmatively, it will be an entire nation. For all of us must work to put him there.”

-John F Kennedy, 35th President of the United States of America

50 years ago today, ALM Eagle landed in the Mare Tranquillitatis on the surface of the Moon. …

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772 – A Quote About Life and a Cosmic Perspective

“You are currently on a 4.5 billion year old spaceship. A self sufficient, organic, complex spaceship. You are orbiting a power source that is a million times large than your ship. There are 200 billion more power sources, possibly with ships like yours, in your group. There are 40 more groups in your particular neighborhood. Your neighborhood is moving at 2 million miles per hour to an object that is 150 million light years away. Welcome to life. It’s more exciting when you think on a larger scale.”

–anonymous

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670 – “Облетев Землю в корабле-спутнике, я увидел, как прекрасна наша планета. Люди, будем хранить и преумножать эту красоту, а не разрушать её!”

“Orbiting Earth in the spaceship, I sae how beautiful our planet is. People, let us preserve and increase this beauty, not destroy it!”

–Yuri Gagarin

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618 – “The Universe is probably littered with one-planet graves of cultures which made the sensible economic decision that there’s no good reason to go into space – each discovered, studied, and remembered by the ones who made the irrational decision.”

–Randall Munroe
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