"Certainly one of the most enthralling things about human life is the recognition that we live in what, for practical purposes, is a universe without bounds."
"My position is that it is high time for a calm debate on more fundamental questions. Does human spaceflight continue to serve a compelling cultural purpose and/or our national interest? Or does human spaceflight simply have a life of its own, without a realistic objective that is remotely commensurate with its costs? Or, indeed, is human spaceflight now obsolete?"
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Source: Song: Alien Blueprint
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More quotes by James Van Allen
"Our family was very fond of the University of Iowa. We thought it was a good place to go."
"I am never as clear about any matter as when I have finished writing about it."
"In a dispassionate comparison of the relative values of human and robotic spaceflight, the only surviving motivation for continuing human spaceflight is the ideology of adventure. But only a tiny number of Earth's six billion inhabitants are direct participants. For the rest of us, the adventure is vicarious and akin to that of watching a science fiction movie. At the end of the day, I ask myself whether the huge national commitment of technical talent to human spaceflight and the ever-present potential for the loss of precious human life are really justifiable."
"These days, it's really been uninteresting except when disasters occur."
"A man is a fabulous nuisance in space right now. He's not worth all the cost of putting him up there and keeping him comfortable and working."