Top 40 Wernher von Braun Quotes (2024 Update)

1. “One good test is worth a thousand expert opinions.”

— Wernher von Braun

2. “The rocket worked perfectly except for landing on the wrong planet.”

— Wernher von Braun

3. “Science does not have a moral dimension. It is like a knife. If you give it to a surgeon or a murderer, each will use it differently.”

— Wernher von Braun

4. “A good engineer gets stale very fast if he doesn’t keep his hands dirty.”

— Wernher von Braun

5. “It takes sixty-five thousand errors before you are qualified to make a rocket.”

— Wernher von Braun

6. “All one can really leave one’s children is what’s inside their heads. Education, in other words, and not earthly possessions, is the ultimate legacy, the only thing that cannot be taken away.”

— Wernher von Braun

7. “Man belongs wherever he wants to go.”

— Wernher von Braun

8. “Get me a broom. I’ll sweep my own office.”

— Wernher von Braun

9. “I find it as difficult to understand a scientist who does not acknowledge the presence of a superior rationality behind the existence of the universe as it is to comprehend a theologian who would deny the advances of science.”

— Wernher von Braun

10. “My experiences with science led me to God. They challenge science to prove the existence of God. But must we really light a candle to see the sun?”

— Wernher von Braun

11. “Conquering the universe one has to solve two problems: gravity and red tape. We could have mastered gravity.”

— Wernher von Braun

12. “Don’t tell me that man doesn’t belong out there. Man belongs wherever he wants to go – and he’ll do plenty well when he gets there.”

— Wernher von Braun

13. “It is in scientific honesty that I endorse the presentation of alternative theories for the origin of the universe, life and man in the science classroom. It would be an error to overlook the possibility that the universe was planned rather than happening by chance.”

— Wernher von Braun

14. “My friends they were dancing here in the streets of Huntsville when our first satellite orbited the Earth. They were dancing again when the first Americans landed on the Moon. I’d like to ask you, don’t hang up your dancing slippers.”

— Wernher von Braun

15. “Crash programs fail because they are based on theory that, with nine women pregnant, you can get a baby in a month.”

— Wernher von Braun

16. “I believe in an immortal soul. Science has proved that nothing disintegrates into nothingness. Life and soul, therefore, cannot disintegrate into nothingness, and so are immortal.”

— Wernher von Braun

17. “Nature does not know extinction; all it knows is transformation. Everything science has taught me, and continues to teach me, strengthens my belief in the continuity of our spiritual existence after death.”

— Wernher von Braun

18. “The best computer is a man, and it’s the only one that can be mass-produced by unskilled labor.”

— Wernher von Braun

19. “We should remember that science exists only because there are people, and its concepts exist only in the minds of men. Behind these concepts lies the reality which is being revealed to us, but only by the grace of God.”

— Wernher von Braun

20. “The logistic requirements for a large, elaborate mission to Mars are no greater that those for a minor military operation extending over a limited theatre of war.”

— Wernher von Braun

21. “For me, the idea of a creation is not conceivable without invoking the necessity of design. One cannot be exposed to the law and order of the universe without concluding that there must be design and purpose behind it all.”

— Wernher von Braun

22. “If we were to start today on an organized and well-supported space program I believe a practical passenger rocket can be built and tested within ten years.”

— Wernher von Braun

23. “By the year 2000 we will undoubtedly have a sizable operation on the Moon, we will have achieved a manned Mars landing and it’s entirely possible we will have flown with men to the outer planets.”

— Wernher von Braun

24. “It was very successful, but it fell on the wrong planet.”

— Wernher von Braun

25. “Our sun is one of a 100 billion stars in our galaxy. Our galaxy is one of billions of galaxies populating the universe. It would be the height of presumption to think that we are the only living thing in that enormous immensity.”

— Wernher von Braun

26. “You can’t have a baby in one month by getting nine women pregnant.”

— Wernher von Braun

27. “Looking back, nothing seems so simple than a utopian vision realised.”

— Wernher von Braun

28. “The same forces of nature which enable us to fly to the stars, enable us also to destroy our star.”

— Wernher von Braun

29. “The greatest gain from space travel consists in the extension of our knowledge. In a hundred years this newly won knowledge will pay huge and unexpected dividends.”

— Wernher von Braun

30. “I have learned to use the world ‘impossible’ with the greatest caution.”

— Wernher von Braun

31. “If we continue at this leisurly pace, we will have to pass Russian customs when we land on the moon.”

— Wernher von Braun

32. “I believe that the time has arrived for medical investigation of the problems of manned rocket flight, for it will not be the engineering problems but rather the limits of the human frame that will make the final decision as to whether manned space flight will eventually become a reality.”

— Wernher von Braun

33. “There are flying grandfathers. But I intend to be an orbiting grandfather.”

— Wernher von Braun

34. “I’m convinced that before the year 2000 is over, the first child will have been born on the moon.”

— Wernher von Braun

35. “Man is not made for space. But with the help of biologists and medical doctors, he can be prepared and accommodated.”

— Wernher von Braun

36. “Everybody knows what the moon is, everybody knows what this decade is, and everybody can tell a live astronaut who returned from the moon from one who didn’t.”

— Wernher von Braun

37. “What we will have attained when Neil Armstrong steps down upon the moon is a completely new step in the evolution of man.”

— Wernher von Braun

38. “With our present knowledge, we can respond to the challenge of stellar space flight solely with intellectual concepts and purely hypothetical analysis. Hardware solutions are still entirely beyond our reach and far, far away.”

— Wernher von Braun

39. “In future utopia will need to hurry to keep up with reality.”

— Wernher von Braun

40. “I only hope that we shall not wait to adopt the program until after our astronomers have reported a new and unsuspected asteroid moving across their fields of vision with menacing speed. At that point it will be too late!”

— Wernher von Braun