Quotes About Space

Hal in full control of the ship. The

fantastic technology behind it, was the last word in man's quest for perfect communications. Here he was, far out in space, speeding away from Earth at thousands of miles an hour, yet in a few milliseconds he could see the headlines of any newspaper he pleased.

It is not easy to run a shipping line between destinations that not only change their positions by millions of kilometers every few days, but also swing through a velocity range of tens of kilometers a second. Anything like a regular schedule is out of the question; there are times when one must forget the whole idea and stay in port—or at least in orbit—waiting for the Solar System to rearrange itself for the greater convenience of Mankind.

For the last time, David Bowman slept.

Somehow, he was not in the least surprised, nor was he alarmed. On the contrary, he felt a sense of calm expectation, such as he had once known when the space medics had tested him with hallucinogenic drugs. The world around him was strange and wonderful, but there was nothing to fear.

The image of Jupiter, with its ribbons of white cloud, its mottled bands of salmon pink, and the Great Red Spot staring out like a baleful eye, hung steady on the flight-deck projection screen.

He broke open the first of the meal packets, and inspected it without enthusiasm. The name on the label—SPACETASTIES—was enough to put him off. And he had grave doubts about the promise printed underneath: 'Guaranteed crumbless'.

We wanted you to have a feel for the size of your habitat, in case you needed that to be more comfortable with the design process.

Minkowski spacetime.

Apart from the jet-black sky, the photo might have been taken almost anywhere in the polar regions of Earth; there was nothing in the least alien about the sea of wrinkled ice that stretched all the way out to the horizon. Only the five space-suited figures in the foreground proclaimed that the panorama was of another world.

When 2001 was written, Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto were mere pinpoints of light in even the most powerful telescope; now they are worlds, each unique, and one of them—Io—is the most volcanically active body in the Solar System.

I'm sure we would not have had men on the moon if it had not been for Wells and Verne and the people who write about this and made people think about it. I'm rather proud of the fact that I know several astronauts who became astronauts through reading my books

One day, somebody had predicted, Earth would have a ring like Saturn's, composed entirely of lost bolts, fasteners, and even tools that had escaped from careless orbital construction workers.)

had often been said that the only thing that could unite Mankind was a threat from space.

Though that, surely, could not be its ultimate goal, it was aimed squarely at the Greater Magellanic Cloud, and the lonely gulfs beyond the Milky Way.

The sixth member of the crew cared for none of these things, for it was not human. It was the highly advanced HAL 9000 computer, the brain and nervous system of the ship.

We're particularly anxious to get our hands on Pioneer 10—the first man-made object to escape from the Solar System.

The sixth member of the crew cared for none of these things, for it was not human. It was the highly advanced HAL 9000 computer

it was an accident—that had killed Frank Poole.

Someone had once said that you could be terrified in space, but you could not be worried there.

That's still looking a long way ahead. For the present, you're the only person who should attempt communication. Agreed, Captain?

Jupiter now filled the entire sky; it was so huge that neither mind nor eye could grasp it any longer, and both had abandoned the attempt. If it had not been for the extraordinary variety of color—the reds and pinks and yellows and salmons and even scarlets—of the atmosphere beneath them, Bowman could have believed that he was flying low over a cloudscape on Earth.

Beyond gravity, some of that freedom was regained; with the loss of weight went many of the cares and worries of Earth. Heywood

I am having difficulty in maintaining contact with Earth. The trouble is in the AE-35 unit. My Fault Prediction Center reports that it may fail within seventy-two hours.