SCHOLAR ISLAND

"The very name "Space" seemed a blasphemous libel....he could not call it "dead".....Since out of this ocean the worlds and their life had come. He had thought it barren: he saw now that it was the womb of worlds.....No: Space was the wrong name. Older thinkers had been wiser when they named it simply the heavens."

C.S. Lewis

"Man must rise above the Earth-to the top of the atmosphere and beyond-for only thus will he fully understand the world in which he lives."

-Socrates

"Our passionate preoccupation with the sky, the stars, and a God somewhere in outer space is a homing impulse. We are drawn back to where we came from.
-Eric Hoffer  New York Times 21 July, 1969, on the first Moon Landing

"Space isn’t remote at all. It’s only an hour’s drive away if your car could go straight upwards."

Sir Fred Hoyle

"Look at your feet. You are standing in the sky. When we think of the sky, we tend to look up, but the sky actually begins at the earth. We walk through it, yell into it, rake leaves, wash the dog, and drive cars in it. We breathe it deep within us. With every breath, we inhale millions of molecules of sky, heat them briefly, and then exhale them back into the world."

Diane Ackerman, "A Natural History of the Senses"

   "The stars are our destiny. They are our legacy. Strewn like diamonds on a field of black velvet, they lie waiting for the hand of man to pluck them up. The gulf of space is like an infinite version of Ali Baba's cave, crammed with jewels and riches beyond counting"

                         Marshall T. Savage

                           The Millenial Project

"No matter how vast, how total, the failure of man here on earth, the work of man will be resumed elsewhere. War leaders talk of resuming operations on this front and that, but man's front embraces the whole universe."

-Henry Miller

Sunday After the War, "Reunion in Brooklyn"

"I would have wished that after my return people had asked me how it was out there. How I coped with the glistening blackness of the world and how I felt being a star that circled the Earth."

Reinhard Furrer (Federal Republic of Germany)

"After several weeks it became difficult to remember clearly the fragrance of grass and trees, or warm summer rain, or powdery snow in a glade, or the faces of friends and loved ones that you now see only in dreams."

Pyotr Klimuk

"When we contemplate the whole globe as one great dewdrop, striped and dotted with continents and islands, flying through space with other stars all singing and shining together as one, the whole universe appears as an infinite storm of beauty."

-John Murir   1879

Travels In Alaska

"The eternal silence of these infinite spaces fills me with dread."

Blaise Pascal (1623-62)

"The Earth is just too small and fragile a basket for the human race to keep all its eggs in."

Robert A. Heinlein

"If man is Alpha and Omega, then it is profoundly important for religious reasons that we travel to other worlds, other galaxies; for it may be Man’s destiny to assure immortality, not only of his race but even of the spark of life itself….By the grace of God, we shall in this century successfully send man through space to the moon and to other planets on the first leg of his last and greatest journey…."

Werner Von Braun

"Etana looked down and saw the earth had become like a hill and the sea like a well. And so they flew for another hour, and once again Etana looked down: the earth was now like a grinding stone and the sea like a pot. After the third hour the earth was only a speck of dust, and the sea no longer seen."

Flight of Etana (written in Babylon 4,700 years ago)

"Transcendence is a wrong-headed concept. It means escape from the earth-bound and the repetitive, climbing above the everyday. It means putting men on the moon before feeding and housing the world’s poor."

Cynthia Cockburn

"The Earth is the cradle of the mind….Mankind will not remain on earth forever, but in its quest for light and space, will at first timidly penetrate beyond the confines of the atmosphere, and later in the search for heat and light will conquer for itself all the space near the sun."

Konstantin E. Tsiolkovsky (1857-1935)

(father of Space flight)

"What is the destiny of man? What is the purpose of human life? If no one knows the answers to these questions now, can we ever hope to find them? We have searched for the answers on Earth for thousands of years without much success. Possibly we can find them out among he stars."

Donald W. Cox & James H. Chestek

Doomsday Asteroid

"In short, if humanity wants to either progress or survive, we have to become a space faring species."

Dr. Robert Zubrin

"The Earth reminded us of a Christmas tree ornament hanging in the blackness of space. As we got farther and farther away it diminished in size. Finally it shrank to the size of a marble, the most beautiful marble you can imagine. That beautiful, warm, living object looked so fragile, so delicate, that if you touched it with a finger it would crumble and fall apart. Seeing this has to change a man, has to make a man appreciate the creation of God and the love of God."

James Irwin (USA)

"one morning I woke up and decided to look out the window, to see where we were. We were flying over America and suddenly I saw snow, the first snow, we ever saw from orbit. Light and powdery, it blended with the contours of the land, with the veins of the rivers. I thought-autumn, snow-people are busy getting ready for winter. A few minutes later we were flying over the Atlantic, then Europe, and then Russia. I have never visited America, but I imagined that the arrival of autumn and winter is the same there as in other places, and the process of getting ready for them is the same. And then it struck me that we are all children of our Earth. It does not matter what the country you look at. We are all Earth’s children, and we should treat her as our Mother."

Aleksandr Aleksandrov

"When men have gone down the longest rivers, climbed the highest mountains, and crossed the greatest deserts there will still be the stars….

Louis L’Amour

A Trail of Memories

"The murky views which some scientists advocate as to the inevitable end of every living thing on Earth…should not now be regarded as axiomatic. The finer parts of mankind will, in all likelihood, never perish-they will migrate from sun to sun as they go out. And so there is no end to life, to intellect and the perfection of humanity. Its progress is everlasting."

Konstantin E. Tsiolkovsky

"So there he is at last. Man on the moon. The poor magnificent bungler! He can’t even get to the office without undergoing the agonies of the damned, but give him a little metal, a few chemicals, some wire and twenty or thirty billion dollars, and, Vroom! There he is, up on a rock a quarter of a million miles up in the sky."

Russell Baker

(N.Y. Times July 21,1969)

"Treading the soil of the moon, palpitating its pebbles, tasting the panic and the splendor of the event, feeling in the pit of one’s stomach the separation from Terra-these form the most romantic sensation an explorer has ever known."

Vladimir Nabakov

(N.Y. Times, July 21,1969)

"Looking outward to the blackness of space, sprinkled with the glory of a universe of lights, I saw majesty-but no welcome. Below was a welcoming planet. There, contained in the thin, moving, incredibly fragile shell of the biosphere is everything that is dear to you, all the human drama and comedy. That’s where life is; that’s where all the good stuff is."

Loren Acton (USA)

"What struck me most was the silence. It was a great silence, unlike any I have encountered on Earth, so vast and deep that I began to hear my own body: my heart beating, my blood vessels pulsing, even the rustle of my muscles moving over each other seemed audible. There were more stars in the sky than I had expected. The sky was deep black, yet at the same time bright with sunlight.

The Earth was small, light blue, and so touchingly alone, our home that must be defended like a holy relic. The Earth was absolutely round. I believe I never knew what the word round meant until I saw Earth from Space."

Aleksei Leonov (USSR)

The Earth at night looks even more magical than it does during the day. There is always a storm happening somewhere. Flashes of lightning sometimes cover up to a fourth of a continent. At first you see this as a natural disturbance, the eruption of splashes as a majestic spectacle. Aboard the spacecraft it’s quiet. The peals of thunder cannot be heard, the gusts of win cannot be felt, and it seems as if everything is calm, simply a play of light. All of s sudden , against your will, you imagine that the lightning comes not from a natural storm, but from the explosions of bombs. No. This must never occur. Let only the northern lights and lightning blaze above our precious Earth."

Vladimir Shatalov

"We agree with you, and I know the astronauts do too, that the Apollo mission could not have succeeded without the help of God…I believe that you can be reassured that those who work in the space program are indeed aware of the presence of the Creator and are not neglectful of spiritual values."

O.B. Lloyd (NASA official spokesman)

"Already ambition is stirring in men to conquer space as they conquered air, and this ambition…..as time goes on becomes more and more reinforced by necessity."

J.D. Bernal

An Enquiry into the Future of the Three Enemies of the Rational Soul

"Should we withdraw in fear from the next step, should we substitute temporary material welfare for spiritual adventure….Then will Man fall back from his destiny, the mighty surge of his achievement will be lost, and the confines of this planet will destroy him."

George Mueller

"My first view-a panorama of brilliant deep blue ocean, shot with shades of green and gray and white-was of atolls and clouds. Close to the window I could see that this Pacific scene in motion was rimmed by the great curved limb of the Earth. It had a thin halo of blue held close, and beyond black space. I held my breath, but something was missing-I felt strangely unfulfilled. Here was a tremendous visual spectacle, but viewed in silence. There was no grand musical accompaniment: no triumphant, inspired sonata or symphony. Each one of us must write the music of this sphere for ourselves."

Charles Walker (USA)

"Put three grains of sand inside a vast Cathedral, and the cathedral will be more closely packed with sand than space is with stars."

James Jeans

As high-tech communications gadgets proliferate on Earth, the satellites enabling them to work proliferate above. Increasingly, communication systems call for whole constellations of satellites, orbiting at about the same altitude, to provide global coverage. One constellation, the Iridium system, with 66 spacecraft, is now in place, and more are planned.

All those satellites, however, have to share near-Earth space with lots of junk-10,000 pieces of debris four to eight inches across or larger; 100,000 pieces bigger than about half an inch. Because all that debris is traveling at thousands of miles an hour, the possibility of a collision sever enough to destroy a satellite is a real one. Just how real has been revealed by Italian scientists, who analyzed the risk for a constellation of satellites like Iridiums.

Writing in Nature, they concluded that there was a 10 percent chance per decade that a satellite in a typical constellation would have a catastrophic collision. That is bad enough. But worse is what could happen next.

Because of the nature of the orbits in a satellite constellation, the debris from one collision (which itself could create thousands more pieces of junk) would increase the chances of another collision with a satellite in the constellation, to 10 percent over five years. The eventual result could be a chain of collisions that may irreversibly pollute a portion of near-Earth space much faster than previously thought, perhaps over a century, rather than 300 to 500 years.

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"The fleck of paint that cratered the Challenger's windshield in 1983 was a harbinger of things to come. Today between one and thee &80,000 Shuttle windows and a large number of heat-shielding tiles are replaced after each flight. Debris impact management is a major factor in space station design and operation.

   Fortunately, space junk damage has so far been limited to monetary losses, but surely the day will come when a space-walking astronaut is struck and killed by one of these buzzing bees (remember that even a small washer has the impact energy of a cannonball at orbital velocities).

   Objects in orbits higher than 700 kilometers will remain there more than 1,000 years. If debris growth continues unchecked, before the end of this century the density of debris objects will reach critical mass--debris will beget more debris by mutual impacts. If that happens, we will have effectively walled ourselves in with a shell of debris around Earth that no spacecraft, manned or unmanned, civilian or military, can safely penetrate. And the space age will be over."

Ray Erikson   (Principal Engineer, The Flight Materials Group,Wakefield ,Mass.)

"The rocket went farther into the dark the moment it separated from the cowling. At first we saw stars, and then the sun entered the spacecraft, casting threads of the raspberry-colored cosmic dawn."

Zhugderdemidisyn Gurragcha (Mongolia)

"Weightlessness comes on abruptly. I soared as if I were inside a soap bubble. Like an infant in the womb of my Spacecraft, still a child of my Mother Earth."

Miroslav Hermaszewski (Poland)

   "It is impossible to accede to a fundamentally new environment without experiencing the inner terrors of a metamorphosis. The child is terrified when it opens its eyes for the first time. Similarly, for our mind to adjust itself to lines and horizons enlarged beyond measure, it must renounce the comfort of familiar narrowness. It must create a new equilibrium for everything that had formerly been so neatly arranged in its small inner world. It is dazzled when it emerges from its dark prison, awed to find itself suddenly at the top of a tower, and it suffers from giddiness and disorientation. The whole psychology of modern disquiet is linked with the sudden confrontation with space-time."

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

The Phenomenon of Man

   "The fleck of paint that cratered the Challenger's windshield in 1983 was a harbinger of things to come. Today, between one and three $80,000 Shuttle windows and a large number of heat-shielding tiles are replaced after each flight. Debris impact management is a major factor in space station design and operation. 

   Fortunately, space junk damage has so far been limited to monetary losses, but surely the day will come when a space-walking astronaut is stuck and killed by one of these buzzing bees (remember that even a small washer has the impact energy of a cannonball at orbital velocities).

   Objects in orbits higher than 700 kilometers will remain there more than 1,000 years. If debris growth continues unchecked, before the end of this century the density of debris objects will reach critical mass-debris will beget more debris by mutual impacts. If that happens, we will have effectively walled ourselves in with a shell of debris around Earth that no spacecraft, manned or unmanned, civilian or military, can safely penetrate. And the space age will be over."

Ray Eriksson, Principal Engineer 

The Flight Materials Group Wakefield Mass.

Forbes Mag

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Book: "Rocket Man: Robert H. Goddard and the birth of the Space Age" by David A Clary

Book: "Sky As Frontier" by David T. Courtwright

Book: "Rocket Dreams: How the Space Age Shaped Our Vision of a World Beyond" by Marina Benjamin

Book: "Voyage to the Milky Way: The Future of Space Exploration" By Donald Goldsmith

Book: Who’s Who in Space: The International Space Year Edition. by Michael Cassutt

Book: The Japanese and Indian Space Programmes: Two Roads into Space…by B. Harvey

Book: The Home Planet….ed Kevin W. Kelley (for the Association of Space Explorers)

Book: The Case for Mars..by Robert Zubrin

Book: The Millennial Project..by Marshall T. Savage

Book: "The Heavens and Earth: A political History of the Space Age." by 

Walter A. McDougall

Book: "Space Odyssey" by William Harwood

Book: "The Project Orion: The True Story of the Atomic Spaceship" by George Dyson

Book: "Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space" by Carl Sagan

Book: "Leaving Earth" by Robert Zimmerman

Book: "Journeys to the Ends of the Universe: A guided Tour of the Beginnings and Endings of Planets, Stars, Galaxies and the Universe." by C.R. Kitchin

Book: "NASA & The Exploration of Space: With Works from the NASA Art Collection" by R.D. Launius & B. Ulrich

Book: "Almost Heaven: The Story of Women in Space" by Bettyann Holtzmann Keves

Book: "Earth From Above, Revised Edition" by Yann Arthus-Bertrand

Book: "Hubble Space Telescope: New Views of the Universe" by Mark Volt

Book: "The Space Telescope: A Study of NASA, Science, Technology, and Politics" by Robert W. Smith

Book: "Concepts of Space: The History of Theories of Space in Physics" by Max Jammer

Book: "Lost In Space: The Fall of NASA and the Dream of A New Space Age" by Greg Klerlx

Book: "Life Beyond Earth" by Timothy Ferris

Book: "Centauri Dreams" by Paul Gilster

Book: "Full Moon" by Michael Light

Book: "Planet Earth" by Stefan Dech et al.

Book: "Beyond: Visions of the Interplanetary Probes" by Michael BEnson

Book: "Rose Center for Earth and Space: A Museum for the Twenty-First Century"

Book: "A History of Space Exploration" by Tim Furniss

Book: "National Geographic Encyclopedia of Space" by Linda K. Glover et al.