“The first rule of space travel…is that mistakes are fatal. Space isn’t friendly; it kills you. And there are no second chances.”
Source: Singularity Sky (2003), Chapter 4, “The Admiral’s Man” (p. 72; ellipsis represents a minor elision of description)
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Charles Stross 211
British science fiction writer and blogger 1964Related quotes

De Tweede Helft, Ad de Visser, SUN, Nijmegen 1998, p. 107
from posthumous publications

Quoted in Pallava Bagla, "India's growing strides in space," http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/7374714.stm, BBC News (2008-04-30).

On how she interpreted “home” in her collection Mouthful of Birds in “Samanta Schweblin: There’s No Place Like Home, Including Home Itself” https://lithub.com/samanta-schweblin-theres-no-place-like-home-including-home-itself/ in LitHub (2019 Jan 15)
“A space representing the shortest distances for messages to travel…”
Living Systems: Basic Concepts (1969)

“In the space between chaos and shape there was another chance.”
Source: The World and Other Places: Stories

Playboy interview (1996)
Context: If NASA's budgeters could be convinced that there are riches on Mars, we would explode overnight to stand on the rim of the Martian abyss. We need space for reasons we have not as yet discovered, and I don't mean Tupperware. … NASA feels it has to justify everything it does in practical terms.
And Tupperware was one of the many practical products that came out of space travel. NASA feels it has got to flimflam you to get you to spend money on space. That's B. S. We don't need that. Space travel is life-enhancing, and anything that's life-enhancing is worth doing. It makes you want to live forever.
“The first quest or the first love is also the last. The second isn’t.”
#427
Vectors: Aphorisms and Ten Second Essays (2001)