Richard Branson
Since I was a kid, I have always looked up at the sky rather than down to the ground. I might have been inspired by the fact that my mother was the first air stewardess in the UK and she used to tell me stories of exploding aircraft just after the second world war. My friends are also friends with Douglas Bader, and the 1956 film about his life, Reach for the Sky, was a regular on TV for the Branson household on a wet Sunday afternoon.
Space began to inspire me at the same time, and reading Dan Dare was closely followed by the real thing when Yuri Gagarin became the first man in space, when I was 11. Since then, I have been fascinated by the idea of taking off into space without having to build a rocket hundreds of metres high.
In 1995, I remember asking Buzz Aldrin whether it would be possible to launch satellites and humans into space from a giant helium balloon. When he explained that not only was it possible, but also that the US had experimented with the concept in the 1950s, I was riveted and became fascinated with the idea of finding a new and ultimately better way to get to space – that was the beginning of Virgin Galactic.
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Richard Branson, founder of the Virgin Group
Piers Sellers
I’ve been fascinated by space since I first became aware of space travel, when I was 7. We were a very lucky generation – we got to watch the early, difficult steps of space flight almost as they happened. It is incredible to think now that it was only 12 years between the launch of the first satellite and the first lunar landing. It’s often said that 500 years ago the oceans were the great unknown, and that their exploration was a difficult, dangerous and expensive business. But the rewards were huge. Space is the ocean of our generation.
Piers Sellers, astronaut with two space shuttle missions
Alan Stern
Many things about space inspire me. These include the quest for knowledge about our origins and whether life – particularly intelligent life – is abundant in the universe; the historic nature of a species exploring beyond its home planet; the abundant resources that await us among the asteroids and moons of our solar system; and the thrill and excitement that exploration of new frontiers offers in stirring the hearts of a civilisation.
Alan Stern, assistant administrator for NASA’s science mission directorate
Brian Schmidt
Space is the final frontier for humankind: it is now and always will be. It is the place that we will always know the least about because of its almost limitless extent. But it also offers the potential of almost unlimited opportunity.
Brian Schmidt, astrophysicist at the Australian National University’s Mount Stromlo Observatory near Canberra and discoverer of the accelerating expansion of the universe
Slava Turyshev
I grew up in a small, remote region of the Altai mountains almost exactly under the spot where most of the Soviet spacecraft launched from Baikonur cosmodrome would jettison their first stages. From the balcony of our apartment, my father and I would watch a rocket appear from behind the horizon and climb higher and higher. Suddenly we’d see a cloud of gas indicating that the first stage had separated from the rest of the rocket. It was an emotional picture that got me thinking about space.
When I was 9 years old, I started to design, build and launch rockets. My largest rocket was over 2 metres long and had two stages, a parachute, a science compartment and a little mouse as a passenger. I was 12 at that time. My cousin and I built all the essential parts from local materials, including the solid propellant. That established my interest in space exploration.
Today physics stands at the threshold of major discoveries, and this progress has, in part, inspired me to continue with my space efforts. I can now design and build systems that can fully utilise the space environment and new technologies to study gravitation, cosmology and astrophysics.
Slava Turyshev, astrophysicist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California
Catherine Cesarsky
The lack of boundaries, the perception of infinity.
Catherine Cesarsky, director general of the European Southern Observatory in Garching, Germany
José Funes
I was 6 years old on 20 July 1969, when Neil Armstrong made his “giant leap for mankind”. This is my first memory of my interest in exploring space. I would say that the cosmos raises in me a great desire to know more about it. In this desire there is a deeper one: to find God, the creator.
José Funes, director of the Vatican Observatory in Tucson, Arizona
Patrick Moore
I think it is the wonder of the unknown. We live on a tiny planet in an immense universe and we want to find out where we fit into it and what it all means. Are there folks up there who know so much more than we do, and are they at this moment looking up at us? It may well be so. Problems of this kind cannot be solved as yet, and if I were told the answers I doubt whether I could understand them. That, to me at least, is the main reason why space is so fascinating and so challenging.
Patrick Moore, UK-based astronomer, broadcaster and writer
Mark Kelly
It’s the most far-reaching and technologically challenging place you can go. Space is my job. I love being an astronaut because it is never boring and it has a lasting impact on human civilisation – it is advancing science and technology.
Mark Kelly, astronaut and space shuttle pilot
David Charbonneau
One of the great questions for humanity is whether we are alone in the universe. We certainly aren’t the first generation to wonder about this. Ever since it was realised that the points of light in the night sky were stars similar to the sun, humans have looked up and asked: might those stars have planets like the solar system and might there be life there?
What is different is that we are the first generation with the technological ability to answer this question. It was only 12 years ago that astronomers found the first Jupiter-like planet orbiting another sun-like star, and yet now we know of more than 200 such worlds. In the next five years we will have the ability to find small, rocky planets like Earth, and perhaps only a few years beyond that we will be able to study their atmospheres to detect the telltale signatures of life. The ramifications will surely extend far beyond astronomy.
David Charbonneau, professor of astronomy at Harvard University, has discovered five exoplanets
Carolyn Porco
Its call inspires me, like the call of a distant horizon, to seek what lies beyond. That it is knowable moves me to immerse myself in it, and its grandeur and vastness and endless possibilities all inspire me. On a clear night you can see forever, and there is sufficient enchantment in that to last for all human existence.
Carolyn Porco, leader of the imaging science team on the Cassini mission to Saturn
