The Wonder of It All

Alan Bean:
All of us came to NASA to ... because we were good at flying high-performance airplanes, we were good at doing the things in the best airplanes that there were, okay? And suddenly the space program shows up, so now we get a chance to do those things in a spaceship, which is even more complicated and even more difficult, even more dangerous, so that appealed to all of us.

Edgar D. Mitchell:
Our Command Module Pilot, Stuart Roosa, he always had the remark when we started to ignite engines, "Well, gentlemen, it's sweaty palms time again." And, yes, there's always a heightened sense of alertness and apprehension when you ignited engines, because likely if something was gonna happen, that's when it was gonna happen.

Eugene Cernan:
[about the Apollo 1 fire] It's a clich? to say they didn't die in vain, Grissom, White and Chaffee, but they truly didn't. If it weren't for their sacrifice, and the mistakes we made early on in Apollo to get to the Moon as quickly as we could, we probably would have lost somebody on the way. But they stimulated the re-design of this spacecraft to allow us to get there safely and return home and get the job done; you know, and those three guys have never received the tribute that I think they deserve.

Eugene Cernan:
We had mountains rising above us on three sides that are higher than the Grand Canyon is deep, and we landed down in the middle of that. No trees, it's not green, no water, no, no Colorado River running through, nothing. How can something so desolate be so magnificent? I just, it's, it's, it's the moment of it all, I guess.

John Young:
You could carry the equivalent of a 100-pound sack of moon rocks and jump up to the second rung of the lunar lander, which is that high off the floor here [holds his hand at eye level] , flat-footed. That one-sixth gravity's really nice. When you drop your pencil in zero gravity, you can chase it for three hours. When you drop it in one-sixth gravity, just look down and there it is.

John Young:
Why do people explore in the first place? It's for the long-term preservation of the species, you know, whether in space or in medicine or wherever you're exploring, the curiosity of humans is to keep going.