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Alan Bean Quotes

Alan LaVern Bean was an American naval officer and aviator, aeronautical engineer, test pilot, and NASA astronaut; he was the fourth person to walk on the Moon. He was selected to become an astronaut by NASA in 1963 as part of Astronaut Group 3.

He made his first flight into space aboard Apollo 12, the second crewed mission to land on the Moon, at age 37 in November 1969. He made his second and final flight into space on the Skylab 3 mission in 1973, the second crewed mission to the Skylab space station. After retiring from the United States Navy in 1975 and NASA in 1981, he pursued his interest in painting, depicting various space-related scenes and documenting his own experiences in space as well as those of his fellow Apollo program astronauts. He was the last living crew member of Apollo 12. Wikipedia  

✵ 15. March 1932 – 26. May 2018
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Alan Bean: 7   quotes 0   likes

Famous Alan Bean Quotes

“The movement of human beings off the planet out into the Universe; first the Moon, and then Mars, and then who knows where, is just beginning and there is nothing that can stop it.”

Alan Bean

An Interview with Alan Bean (1992)
Context: The movement of human beings off the planet out into the Universe; first the Moon, and then Mars, and then who knows where, is just beginning and there is nothing that can stop it. None of us know the timetable, none of us know whether it's going to happen rapidly or it's going to happen very slowly.
Eventually, as the centuries unfold, human beings will populate all these places and maybe a thousand years from now, or maybe it's two thousand or five thousand, there will be more human beings living off the Earth than live on it. Its just going to happen and we don't need to be anxious about it. We don't need to worry that next year they decide to cut the space station. If they cut the space station next year, I hope they don't, but if they did, it's not the end of the world. We're going to eventually have a wonderful space station. Eventually there are going to be cities in space. If Chicago had been founded a hundred years later, we wouldn't even know that now. I don't know when it was founded, but if it had been a hundred years later or a hundred years earlier, right now it wouldn't make any difference. It would probably look about the same. People would be just as happy doing the same things. That's the same way with space exploration. Maybe we don't go to Mars in my lifetime, maybe we don't even go till my grandkids lifetime. That's okay. Eventually it will happen.

“Apollo is the greatest adventure of all humankind, and it needs to be recorded in every way possible for future generations in books, in movies and on television. … I’m an artist. That’s the way I care about things. Maybe 200 years from now, someone will say, "I’m glad he did that."”

Alan Bean

After the moon, art is his mission (1997)

“I think Genesis in the Old Testament has it wrong. I don’t think we were thrown out of the Garden of Eden. Just look around. We’re still in it, particularly when you compare the earth with the moon. The moon has no plants, no life, no water, no animals, no nothing.”

Alan Bean

After the moon, art is his mission (1997)

“Everyone is trying to reach for their own stars, and all of those stars aren’t light-years away. They are as close as our job, our family, our children, our next-door neighbors and our good friends.”

Alan Bean

Statement on significations in his painting "Reaching for the Stars", at the U.S. Astronaut Hall of Fame, Florida, USA.
After the moon, art is his mission (1997)

“Long after I’m gone, people will have these paintings with dust and footprints in them. It will be something really special for people to enjoy and remember.”

Alan Bean

After the moon, art is his mission (1997)

“!-- I think everything depends on money. How much money does the administration want to put forth to do this kind of exploration. And I think the amount we're getting now is about what we're going to get in the future. I don't see that changing very much and so I think we'll take that money and use it to build a space station. Then we'll use it to make it a little better and then when money frees up of that amount, then we'll try to decide what we can do with that money then.
I don't think we're going to see a sudden jump in the budget other than inflation. It will keep going with inflation. So I don't see anything for a while. It's going to be an orderly movement and that's okay. That's the way history is. --> History has spurts and then is steady, and then maybe even backing up a step, and then forward again.”

Alan Bean

An Interview with Alan Bean (1992)

“History has spurts and then is steady, and then maybe even backing up a step, and then forward again.”

Alan Bean

An Interview with Alan Bean (1992)

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