A Quote by Charles Duke

Two months after I got out of test pilot school, I saw an advert that said NASA was recruiting more astronauts. The best job you could have as a test pilot was being an astronaut, so I volunteered.

Charles Duke

Quote Topics

Work After Astronaut Astronauts Being Best Best Job Could Got Job Months More NASA Out Pilot Recruiting Said Saw School Test Test Pilot Two Two Months

Quote Author

Charles Duke
American - Astronaut
Born: October 3, 1935

We have never lost a crew member on the space station, but of course, the Columbia accident. I was - I'd already been an astronaut for a decade when the crew of Columbia was killed. And I went through test pilot school. Rick Husband and I were out at Edwards at test pilot school together. He was the commander of Columbia.

Chris Hadfield

I loved being a test pilot, and so being an astronaut was - was not my end point in, you know, either I achieved success by being an astronaut, or if I don't get picked, I'm not successful. I loved my career as a pilot, and it was a bonus to be selected as an astronaut.

Gregory H. Johnson

On a standard space shuttle crew, two of the astronauts have a test pilot background - the commander and the pilot.

Sally Ride

I got this letter asking me if I wanted to or if I would consider going to experimental test pilot school and becoming the first Negro astronaut and I thought it was crazy.

Ed Dwight

And so, I was not a military test pilot, but as soon as NASA expressed an interest in flying scientists and people who were not military test pilots, that was an epiphany that just came like a stroke of lightning.

Story Musgrave

Somehow, I knew you had to have perfect eyesight to be a test pilot, and so that was it for my astronaut career.

Paul Allen

I can still remember them wheeling the black and white TV sets into our classroom at school so we could watch the men landing on the Moon, and that obviously had a huge impact. I later found out those people flying Apollo were ex-military test pilots, so I decided to join the Air Force and become a test pilot.

David Mackay

I flew fighters for the Navy in San Diego for three years, went and did my post-graduate education, and then I was a test pilot in Patuxent River, Maryland, for a few years. I was back in the fleet in the Navy when I was selected to come back here to NASA to become an astronaut.

Alan G. Poindexter

As a military pilot and a test pilot, handling unusual situations and aircraft malfunctions was part of the business.

Fred Haise

When a test pilot comes off a flight, there is typically another pilot who is going to take it up, and he believes in the debriefing. You don't keep something to yourself.

Wally Schirra

When a test pilot comes off a flight, there is typically another pilot who is going to take it up, and he believes in the debriefing. You don't keep something to yourself

Wally Schirra

Not long after I got my test pilot qualification, I realised there was no manned space flight programme in the U.K., and there was unlikely to be one.

David Mackay

But when I was selected, after my very first tour of squadron duty, to become one of the youngest candidates for the test pilot school, I began to realize, maybe you are a little bit better.

Alan Shepard

Astronauts working for the government will always need to be either pilots or mission specialists. Those who want to be pilots should have military experience - ideally, a test pilot background.

Buzz Aldrin

Then there was the challenge to keep doing better and better, to fly the best test flight that anybody had ever flown. That led to my being recognized as one of the more experienced test pilots, and that led to the astronaut business.

Alan Shepard

All astronauts, even civilians like me without pilot experience, have to learn how to co-pilot a jet called a T-38.