“Would you know my name, if I saw you in Heaven?” IfsKnowsNamesHeavenSawsUnanswered Questions Author:Eric Clapton
“You say in life, mistakes are many. How come you never admit to any?” MistakeUnanswered QuestionsLife Mistakes Author:Shawn Colvin
“Space travel leading to skylife is vital to human survival, because the question is not whether we will be hit by an asteroid, but when. A planetary culture that does not develop spacefaring is courting suicide. All our history, all our social progress and growing insight will be for nothing if we perish. No risk of this kind, however small it might be argued to be, is worth taking, and no cost to prevent it is too great. No level of risk is acceptable when it comes to all or nothing survival.” IfsHumansKindDoeMightCultureSocialSpaceLevelsGrowingProgressRiskCostSurvivalSuicideInsightAcceptableSpace TravelSocial ProgressAsteroids Author:Gregory Benford
“Colonization means potential immortality for the human genus. Man's safety on Earth was never great, and it dwindles hourly. Disarmament, even world government, will not guarantee survival in an age when population presses natural resources to the limit and when the knowledge of how to work mischief on a planetary scale is ever more widely diffused among peoples who may grow ever more desperate.” MenWorldHumansMayMeanGovernmentAgeEarthGrowsNaturalSpaceLimitsSurvivalResourcesSafetyPressesPopulationScalesImmortalityDesperateGuaranteesMischiefNatural ResourcesDisarmamentColonizationWorld Government Author:Poul Anderson
“Space exploration must be undertaken not only out of simple human curiosity but also to further the survival of the species. The twentieth century has seen the unprecedented development and proliferation of magnificent technologies. Many of them, through design, ignorance, or misuse, are capable of destroying life as well as enhancing it. Space exploration alone holds the promise of eventual escape from a dying planet, provided we wisely manage our resources in the meantime and actually survive that long.” HumansWellsLongSimpleSpaceTechnologyCenturyDyingDesignIgnorancePlanetsDevelopmentPromiseSurvivalCapableResourcesSpeciesCuriosityManageExplorationDestroyingMagnificentTwentieth CenturySpace ExplorationUnprecedentedMisuseProliferation Author:Edgar Mitchell
“The most important fact of this century is not that Earth is threatened in many ways, It is that for the first time in all of its history a decisive means of protecting the home planet exists. It is by using space.” WayFirstsMeanImportantFactsHomeEarthSpaceCenturyPlanetsFirst TimeThreatened Author:William E. Burrows
“Clearly our first task is to use the material wealth of space to solve the urgent problems we now face on Earth: to bring the poverty-stricken segments of the world up to a decent living standard, without recourse to war or punitive action against those already in material comfort; to provide for a maturing civilization the basic energy vital to its survival.” WorldFirstsWarUseProblemActionEarthFacesEnergyWealthSpacePovertyMaterialsComfortCivilizationSurvivalStandardsTasksSolveDecentMatureUrgentRecourseMaterial Wealth Author:Gerard K. O'Neill
“One of the most thoughtless statements, parroted ad nauseam ever since rational concern for our environment exploded into an emotional syndrome, calls Man the only animal that soils its own nest. Every animal soils its nest with the products of its metabolism if unable to move away. Space technology gives us for the first time the freedom to leave our nest, at least for certain functions, in order not to soil it.” IfsMenGivingFirstsMovingCertainOrderSpaceAnimalTechnologyEnvironmentEmotionalProductsFirst TimeConcernFunctionStatementsRationalSoilAdsOur EnvironmentNestsSyndromesMetabolism Author:Krafft Arnold Ehricke
“We of course have our problems, to say the least, in comportment towards ourselves and our environment, but admittance to the cosmos and the spatial infinity and temporal immortality it provides may well be just the remedy for these age-old problems. Access to the boundless resources of the universe may once and for all puncture the pressure of population and politics of scarcity which have generated war, oppression, and plagued our species from the start.” WellsMayWarProblemAgeUniverseCoursesSpaceEnvironmentResourcesPressureSpeciesPopulationAccessOppressionImmortalityCosmosInfinityRemedyOur EnvironmentBoundlessScarcitySpatialPunctureAdmittance Author:Paul Levinson
“It is the hope of those who work toward the breakout from planet Earth that the establishment of permanent, self-sustaining colonies of humans off-Earth will ... make human life forever unkillable, removing it from the endangered species list, where it now stands on a fragile Earth overarmed with nuclear weapons. Second, the opening of virtually unlimited new land areas in space will reduce territorial pressures and therefore diminish warfare on Earth itself.” HumansSelfEarthSpaceForeverLandPlanetsWeaponsAreasPressureSpeciesListsNuclearOpeningPermanentHuman LifeFragileEstablishmentNuclear WeaponsWarfareUnlimitedDiminishColonyPlanet EarthSustainingTerritorialEndangered Species Author:Gerard K. O'Neill