William E. Burrows famous quotes

The question to ask is whether the risk of traveling to space is worth the benefit. The answer is an unequivocal yes, but not only for the reasons that are usually touted by the space community: the need to explore, the scientific return, and the possibility of commercial profit. The most compelling reason, a very long-term one, is the necessity of using space to protect Earth and guarantee the survival of humanity.
-- William E. Burrows

#Moon #Space #Compelling Reason

The most important fact of this century is not that Earth is threatened in many ways, It is that for the first time in all of its history a decisive means of protecting the home planet exists. It is by using space.
-- William E. Burrows

#Home #Mean #Space

Challenger was lost because NASA came to believe its own propaganda. The agency's deeply impacted cultural hubris had it that technology-engineering-would always triumph over random disaster if certain rules were followed. The engineers-turned-technocrats could not bring themselves to accept the psychology of machines with abandoning the core principle of their own faith: equations, geometry, and repetition-physical law, precision design, and testing-must defy chaos.
-- William E. Burrows

#Believe #Technology #Agency

No matter that astronauts and cosmonauts had perished in precisely designed and carefully tested machines. Solid engineering could always provide a safety margin, because the engineers believed, there was complete safety in numbers.
-- William E. Burrows

#Engineering #Numbers #Safety

Therefore, since the world has still Much good, but much less good than ill, And while the sun and moon endure Luck's a chance, but trouble's sure, I'd face it as a wise man would, And train for ill and not for good.

I'm as old as the moon and the stars, and as young as the trees and the lakes. My style comes from looking at what came before me, and from visiting a lot of places.

Someone who has acted carelessly, But later becomes careful and attentive, Is as beautiful as the bright moon emerging from the clouds.

To use a Southern euphemism, our space program has been snake-bit.

The nicest thing about coaching is that one day you feel like you can play handball against a curb, and on other days you feel like you can fly to the moon.

Let's face it, space is a risky business. I always considered every launch a barely controlled explosion.

I'll get up there and I'll do my guitar solos in one of those space outfits.

I've been told I sold 110m albums and singles. If that's the case, I should've come here in a space rocket.

I always knew I was going to die in space.

I was simply restless, quite likely because of a dissatisfaction with the recent trajectory of my life, and if there is a better, more compelling reason for dropping everything and moving to the end of the world, I know not what it is.