Mars

Mars panorama view

Famous Quotes

"Surely one of the most marvelous feats of the 20th-century would be the firm proof that life exists on another planet. All the projected space flights and the high costs of such developments would be fully justified if they were able to establish the existence of life on either Mars or Venus." -- Stanley Miller and Harold Urey, in Science, July 31, 1959

"In looking for life on Mars we could establish for ourselves the reputation of being the greatest Simple Simons of all time." -- Philip H. Abelson, a physicist and the editor of Science, in Science, February 2, 1965

"It may be, it just may be, that life as we know it with its humanity is more unique than many have thought."-- President Lyndon B. Johnson, on awarding medals to NASA officials following the success of Mariner 4, July 29, 1965

"The Mars we had found was just a big moon with a thin atmosphere and no life. There were no martians, no canals, no water, no plants, no surface characteristics that even faintly resembled Earth's."
-- Bruce Murray, recalling his reaction to the Mariner 4 results in his memoir, Journey into Space: The First Thirty Years of Space Exploration (W. W. Norton & Co., 1989)