Wernher von Braun

(1912 - 1977), rocket engineer.

• "Basic research is what I am doing when I don't know what I am doing."

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

• "We can lick gravity, but sometimes the paperwork is overwhelming."

• "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."

• "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."

• "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."

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

• "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."

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

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

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