Wernher von Braun Quotes

Wernher von Braun presents visionary, bold ideas about space, science and progress that spark curiosity.

49 quotes

1. 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.

2. 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.

3. 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.

4. 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?

5. It is in scientific honesty that I endorse the presentation of alternative theories for the origin of the universe, life and man in the science classroom. It would be an error to overlook the possibility that the universe was planned rather than happening by chance.

6. Basic research is when I'm doing what I don't know I'm doing.

7. Crash programs fail because they are based on theory that, with nine women pregnant, you can get a baby in a month.

8. Development of the space station is as inevitable as the rising of the sun; man has already poked his nose into space and he is not likely to pull it back...

9. Early to bed, early to rise, work like hell and advertise.

10. 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.

11. I always shoot for the sky, but sometimes I hit London.

12. 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.

13. I have learned to use the word 'impossible' with the greatest caution.

14. It will free man from his remaining chains, the chains of gravity which still tie him to this planet. It will open to him the gates of heaven.

15. Man is the best computer we can put aboard a spacecraft... and the only one that can be mass-produced with unskilled labor.

16. One test result is worth one thousand expert opinions.

17. Our sun is one of 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 things in that enormous immensity.

18. 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.

19. The mastery of space is man's greatest adventure and his most inspiring undertaking. It should spur us to maximum effort. The nation which mastered all of man's earthly environment- land, sea and air- owes to its destiny the mastery of the limitless environment of space.

20. The greatest gain from space travel consists in the extension of our knowledge. In a hundred years this newly won knowledge will pay huge and unexpected dividends.

21. The universe is hostile only when you do not know its laws. To those who know and obey, the universe is friendly.

22. There is just one thing I can promise you about the outer-space program- your tax-dollar will go further.

23. Our two greatest problems are gravity and paper work. We can lick gravity, but sometimes the paperwork is overwhelming.

24. With every new answer unfolded, science has consistently discovered at least three new questions.

25. It takes sixty-five thousand errors before you are qualified to make a rocket.

26. An outlook through this peephole [that manned space flight had opened] at the vast mysteries of the universe should only confirm our belief in the certainty of its Creator. 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.

27. 'Once the rockets are up who cares where they come down that's not my department,' says Wernher von Braun.

28. Can a physicist visualize an electron? The electron is materially inconceivable and yet, it is so perfectly known through its effects that we use it to illuminate our cities, guide our airlines through the night skies and take the most accurate measurements. What strange rationale makes some physicists accept the inconceivable electrons as real while refusing to accept the reality of a Designer on the ground that they cannot conceive Him?

29. What we will have attained when Neil Armstrong steps down upon the moon is a completely new step in the evolution of man.

30. The first men who set out for Mars had better make sure they leave everything at home in apple-pie order. They won't get back to earth for more than two and a half years. The difficulties of a trip to mars are formidable. . . . What curious information will these first explorers carry back from Mars? Nobody knows-and its extremely doubtful that anyone now living will ever know. All that can be said with certainty today is this: the trip will be made, and will be made . . . someday.

31. 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!

32. In 1492 Columbus knew less about the far Atlantic than we do about the heavens, yet he chose not to sail with a flotilla of less than three ships. . . . So it is with interplanetary exploration: it must be done on the grand scale.

33. Although I know of no reference to Christ ever commenting on scientific work, I do know that He said, "Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." Thus I am certain that, were He among us today, Christ would encourage scientific research as modern man's most noble striving to comprehend and admire His Father's handiwork. The universe as revealed through scientific inquiry is the living witness that God has indeed been at work.

34. There is beauty in space, and it is orderly. There is no weather, and there is regularity. It is predictable. Just look at our little Explorer; you can set your clock by it-literally; it is more accurate than your clock. Everything in space obeys the laws of physics. If you know these laws, and obey them, space will treat you kindly.

35. Science and religion are not antagonists. On the contrary, they are sisters. While science tries to learn more about the creation, religion tries to better understand the Creator. While through science man tries to harness the forces of nature around him, through religion he tries to harness the force of nature within him.

36. The same forces of nature which enable us to fly to the stars, enable us also to destroy our star.

37. 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.

38. In this modern world of ours many people seem to think that science has somehow made such religious ideas as immortality untimely or old fashioned. I think science has a real surprise for the skeptics. Science, for instance, tells us that nothing in nature, not even the tiniest particle, can disappear without a trace. Nature does not know extinction. All it knows is transformation. If God applies this fundamental principle to the most minute and insignificant parts of His universe, doesn't it make sense to assume that He applies it to the masterpiece of His creation, the human soul?

39. We should remember that science exists only because there are people, and its concepts exist only in the minds of men. Behind these concepts lies the reality which is being revealed to us, but only by the grace of God.

40. 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.

41. By the year 2000 we will undoubtedly have a sizable operation on the Moon, we will have achieved a manned Mars landing and it's entirely possible we will have flown with men to the outer planets.

42. I believe that the time has arrived for medical investigation of the problems of manned rocket flight, for it will not be the engineering problems but rather the limits of the human frame that will make the final decision as to whether manned space flight will eventually become a reality.

43. A good engineer gets stale very fast if he doesn't keep his hands dirty.

44. In this age of space flight, when we use the modern tools of science to advance into new regions of human activity, the Bible... remains in every way an up-to-date book. Our knowledge and use of the laws of nature that enable us to fly to the Moon also enable us to destroy our home planet with the atom bomb. Science itself does not address the question whether we should use the power at our disposal for good or for evil. The guidelines of what we ought to do are furnished in the moral law of God.

45. I'm convinced that before the year 2000 is over, the first child will have been born on the moon.

46. The rocket worked perfectly except for landing on the wrong planet.

47. To simply dismiss the concept of God as being unscientific is to violate the very objectivity of science itself.

48. Man is not made for space. But with the help of biologists and medical doctors, he can be prepared and accommodated.

49. Looking back, nothing seems so simple than a utopian vision realised.