A Quote by Neil deGrasse Tyson

People say, oh we just need charismatic leaders to continue on to Mars. Now we've gone to the moon, of course Mars is next. No. Mars was never, of course, next. It is next if you think we went to the moon because we're explorers, but if you know we went to the moon because we were at war then we're never going to Mars. There's no military reason to do it, to justify the expenditure.

Neil deGrasse Tyson

Quote Topics

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Quote Author

Neil deGrasse Tyson
American - Scientist
Born: October 5, 1958

Mars is a long ways away. The moon is only 240,000 miles, but Mars is in the millions. It's too risky without spending more time going to the moon.

Jim Lovell

China, Russia and India are shooting for the Moon. United Arab Emirates says Mars. Other private citizens and companies are heading either to Mars, asteroids, or the Moon.

Rick Tumlinson

We should go to the moon and prepare a base to fire a rocket off to Mars and then go to Mars and colonize Mars. Then when we do that, we will live forever.

Ray Bradbury

I don't go along with going to Moon first to build a launch pad to go to Mars. We should go to Mars from Earth orbit. We have already been to the Moon; we've already practiced.

Wally Schirra

Returning to the Moon with NASA astronauts is not the best usage of our resources. Because OUR resources should be directed to outward, beyond-the-moon, to establishing habitation and laboratories on the surface of Mars that can be built, assembled, from the close-by moons of Mars.

Buzz Aldrin

I'd love to do something like put a piece of moon rock on Mars and a piece of Mars on the moon, a sort of reverse archaeology.

Cornelia Parker

I know enough about the moon to know how unpleasant and inhospitable it is. . . . I know enough about Mars to know that you can't live there, you can't settle it. Mars and the moon are two ugly islands. So then, you say, what's the point of going to them? The point is to be able to say I've been there, I've set foot on them, and I can go further to look for beautiful islands.

Wally Schirra

The best way to study Mars is with two hands, eyes and ears of a geologist, first at a moon orbiting Mars... and then on the surface.

Buzz Aldrin

I think my career will end too early for me to go to Mars, though I might be involved in preparing the next generation to go. I'd love to explore Mars, but, ultimately, it's kind of a crappy planet. The thing is, Mars One people would never go outside without a spacesuit ever again. You're going to live in a tin can. Space stations are noisy; it's like living inside a computer with the fan on all the time. You're never going to smell grass or trees. It's just never going to be anything like Earth. You're never going to swim. You're giving up so much.

Jeremy Hansen

We only went to the moon for military reasons. The space enthusiasts of the day kept saying, "Oh, we're on the moon; we should be on Mars in ten years." That's if it was driven by exploration, but it's never been driven by exploration.

Neil deGrasse Tyson

Mars is the symbolic and totally stimulating next objective that could so dominate the next century's exploration efforts. From Mars, the resources of all the asteroids will become readily available.

Buzz Aldrin

I used to believe there were people on Mars, and of course now we know there aren't. Mars held particular interest. I was curious what kind of beings they would look like.

Clyde Tombaugh

By refocusing our space program on Mars for America's future, we can restore the sense of wonder and adventure in space exploration that we knew in the summer of 1969. We won the moon race; now it's time for us to live and work on Mars, first on its moons and then on its surface.

Buzz Aldrin

We should go boldly where man has not gone before. Fly by the comets, visit asteroids, visit the moon of Mars. There's a monolith there. A very unusual structure on this potato shaped object that goes around Mars once in seven hours. When people find out about that they're going to say 'Who put that there? Who put that there?' The universe put it there. If you choose, God put it there.

Buzz Aldrin

If we go back to the moon, we're guaranteed second, maybe third place because while we are spending all that money, Russia has its eye on Mars. Landing people on the moon will be terribly consuming of resources we don't have. It sounds great - 'Let's go back. This time we're going to stay.' I don't know why you would want to stay on the moon.

Buzz Aldrin

We like to talk about pioneering Mars rather than just exploring Mars, because once we get to Mars, we will set up some sort of permanent presence.