I was a kind of a one-man army. I could solder circuits together, I could turn out things … - James Van Allen

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People without homes will not quarrel with their leaders. This is well known among our principle men now engaged in forming an imperialism of capitalism to govern the world. By dividing the people we can get them to expend their energies in fighting over questions of no importance to us except as teachers of the common herd.

James Van Allen

I was a kind of a one-man army. I could solder circuits together, I could turn out things on the lathe, I could work with rockets and balloons. I'm a kind of a hybrid between an engineer and a physicist and astronomer.

Army, Circuits, Men, Physicist, Things, Together

Same Author Quotes

Certainly one of the most enthralling things about human life is the recognition that we live in what, for practical purposes, is a universe without bounds.

Human, Life, Purpose, Purposes, Recognition, Science

These days, it's really been uninteresting except when disasters occur.

Days, Disaster, Disasters, Occur, These Days, Uninteresting

I am never as clear about any matter as when I have finished writing about it.

Clear, Finished, Matter, Writing

My position is that it is high time for a calm debate on more fundamental questions. Does human spaceflight continue to serve a compelling cultural purpose and
or our national interest? Or does human spaceflight simply have a life of its own, without a realistic objective that is remotely commensurate with its costs? Or, indeed, is human spaceflight now obsolete?

Continue, Cost, Doe, Purpose, Questions, Spaceflight

In a dispassionate comparison of the relative values of human and robotic spaceflight, the only surviving motivation for continuing human spaceflight is the ideology of adventure. But only a tiny number of Earth's six billion inhabitants are direct participants. For the rest of us, the adventure is vicarious and akin to that of watching a science fiction movie. At the end of the day, I ask myself whether the huge national commitment of technical talent to human spaceflight and the ever-present potential for the loss of precious human life are really justifiable.

Adventure, Commitment, Continuing, Human, Loss, Motivation