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Basic research is what I am doing when I don’t know what I am doing.

Wernher von Braun

My friends they were dancing here in the streets of Huntsville when our first satellite orbited the Earth. They were dancing again when the first Americans landed on the Moon. I’d like to ask you, don’t hang up your dancing slippers.
WERNHER VON BRAUN

Dance Earth Friendship Moon Myself Yourself
I’m convinced that before the year 2000 is over, the first child will have been born on the moon.
WERNHER VON BRAUN

Born Children Moon Myself
There is just one thing I can promise you about the outer-space program – your tax-dollar will go further.
WERNHER VON BRAUN

Money Myself Program Promise Space
All one can really leave one’s children is what’s inside their heads. Education, in other words, and not earthly possessions, is the ultimate legacy, the only thing that cannot be taken away.
WERNHER VON BRAUN

Children Earth Education Legacy Oneself Possession
With our present knowledge, we can respond to the challenge of stellar space flight solely with intellectual concepts and purely hypothetical analysis. Hardware solutions are still entirely beyond our reach and far, far away.
WERNHER VON BRAUN

Beyond Challenge Knowledge Present Reach Solution
If we were to start today on an organized and well-supported space program I believe a practical passenger rocket can be built and tested within ten years.
WERNHER VON BRAUN

Build Organization Practice Program Space Start Support
Crash programs fail because they are based on theory that, with nine women pregnant, you can get a baby in a month.
WERNHER VON BRAUN

Failure Pregnant Program Theory Woman Yourself
It was very successful, but it fell on the wrong planet.
WERNHER VON BRAUN

Myself Planet Success Wrong
Conquering the universe one has to solve two problems: gravity and red tape. We could have mastered gravity.
WERNHER VON BRAUN

Conquer Gravity Problem Universe
Our sun is one of a 100 billion stars in our galaxy. Our galaxy is one of billions of galaxies populating the universe. It would be the height of presumption to think that we are the only living thing in that enormous immensity.
WERNHER VON BRAUN

Live Population Stars Sun Thinking
I believe in an immortal soul. Science has proved that nothing disintegrates into nothingness. Life and soul, therefore, cannot disintegrate into nothingness, and so are immortal.
WERNHER VON BRAUN

Believe Forever Immortal Life Science Soul
A good engineer gets stale very fast if he doesn’t keep his hands dirty.
WERNHER VON BRAUN

Dirty Fast Goodness Hands
For my confirmation, I didn’t get a watch and my first pair of long pants, like most Lutheran boys. I got a telescope. My mother thought it would make the best gift.
WERNHER VON BRAUN

Best Confirmation Gift Mom Myself
It takes sixty-five thousand errors before you are qualified to make a rocket.
WERNHER VON BRAUN

Errors Mistake Qualification Yourself
The logistic requirements for a large, elaborate mission to Mars are no greater that those for a minor military operation extending over a limited theatre of war.
WERNHER VON BRAUN

Greatness Limitation Logic Military Mission Operation War
Science does not have a moral dimension. It is like a knife. If you give it to a surgeon or a murderer, each will use it differently.
WERNHER VON BRAUN

Different Dimension Moral Murder Science
My experiences with science led me to God. They challenge science to prove the existence of God. But must we really light a candle to see the sun?
WERNHER VON BRAUN

Challenge Existence Experience God Science See Sun
The same forces of nature which enable us to fly to the stars, enable us also to destroy our star.
WERNHER VON BRAUN

Destroy Fly Force Nature Ourselves Stars
I find it as difficult to understand a scientist who does not acknowledge the presence of a superior rationality behind the existence of the universe as it is to comprehend a theologian who would deny the advances of science.
WERNHER VON BRAUN

Difficult Existence Myself Science Understand Universe
If we continue at this leisurly pace, we will have to pass Russian customs when we land on the moon.
WERNHER VON BRAUN

Fun Moon Speed Tradition
Looking back, nothing seems so simple than a utopian vision realised.
WERNHER VON BRAUN

Acievement Simplicity Vision
Nature does not know extinction; all it knows is transformation. Everything science has taught me-and continues to teach me-strengthens my belief in the continuity of our spiritual existence after death. Nothing disappears without a trace.
WERNHER VON BRAUN

Belief Death Existence Nature Spiritual Strength Teaching Transformation
I only hope that we shall not wait to adopt the program until after our astronomers have reported a new and unsuspected asteroid moving across their fields of vision with menacing speed. At that point it will be too late!
WERNHER VON BRAUN

Astronomy Hope Late Myself Program Space Vision Wait
I have learned to use the word ‘impossible’ with the greatest caution.
WERNHER VON BRAUN

Greatness Impossible Learning Myself Word
Don’t tell me that man doesn’t belong out there. Man belongs wherever he wants to go – and he’ll do plenty well when he gets there.
WERNHER VON BRAUN

Himself Man Path Travel
For me, the idea of a creation is not conceivable without invoking the necessity of design. One cannot be exposed to the law and order of the universe without concluding that there must be design and purpose behind it all.
WERNHER VON BRAUN

Creation Design Ideas Law Necessary Order Purpose Universe
The rocket worked perfectly, except for landing on the wrong planet.
WERNHER VON BRAUN

Exception Perfection Planet Work Wrong

Basic research is what I am doing when I don’t know what I am doing.

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Basic research is what I am doing when I don’t know what I am doing.

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