Scott Kelly > Quotes

“I've learned that most problems aren't rocket science, but when they are rocket science, you should ask a rocket scientist. In other words, I don't know everything, so I've learned to seek advice and counsel and to listen to experts.”
― Scott Kelly, Endurance: A Year in Space, A Lifetime of Discovery

“I've learned that an achievement that seems to have been accomplished by one person probably has hundreds, maybe even thousands, of people's minds and work behind it, and I've learned that it's a privilege to be the embodiment of that work.”
― Scott Kelly, Endurance: A Year in Space, A Lifetime of Discovery

“I've learned from watching my mother train to become a police officer that small steps add to giant leaps.”
― Scott Kelly, Endurance: A Year in Space, A Lifetime of Discovery

“If you were doing something safe, something you already knew could be done, you were wasting time.”
― Scott Kelly, Endurance: A Year in Space, A Lifetime of Discovery

“If NASA were to train an astronaut how to mail a package, they would take a box, put an object in the box, show you the route to the post office, and send you on your way with postage. The Russians would start in the forest with a discussion on the species of tree used to create the pulp that will make up the box, then go into excruciating detail on the history of box making.”
― Scott Kelly, Endurance: A Year in Space, A Lifetime of Discovery

“Only later, when the Twitter chat is over, do I have the chance to reflect that I just experienced being trolled, in space, by the second man on the moon, while also engaging in a Twitter conversation with the president.”
― Scott Kelly, Endurance: A Year in Space, A Lifetime of Discovery

“Unlike NASA, the Russians don’t feel the drama of the countdown is necessary.”
― Scott Kelly, Endurance: A Year in Space, A Lifetime of Discovery

“What is it worth to see two former bitter enemies transform weapons into transport for exploration and the pursuit of scientific knowledge? What is it worth to see former enemy nations turn their warriors into crewmates and lifelong friends? This is impossible to put a dollar figure on, but to me it’s one of the things that makes this project worth the expense, even worth risking our lives.”
― Scott Kelly, Endurance: A Year in Space, A Lifetime of Discovery

“Here, in a book, I found something I’d thought I would never find: an ambition.”
― Scott Kelly, Endurance: A Year in Space, A Lifetime of Discovery

“Working with the right person can make the toughest day go well, and working with the wrong person can make the simplest task excruciatingly difficult.”
― Scott Kelly, Endurance: A Year in Space, A Lifetime of Discovery

“You know,” Gennady says, “it will really suck if we get hit by this satellite.” “Da,” Misha agrees. “Will suck.”
― Scott Kelly, Endurance: A Year in Space, A Lifetime of Discovery

“I clean up, putting all the tools and instruments back where they belong, remembering that a tool in the wrong place is no better than a tool we don’t have.”
― Scott Kelly, Endurance: A Year in Space, A Lifetime of Discovery

“At NASA, we talk about “expeditionary behavior,” which is a loose term for being able to take care of yourself, take care of others, help out when it’s needed, stay out of the way when necessary—a combination of soft skills that’s difficult to define, hard to teach, and a significant challenge when they are lacking.”
― Scott Kelly, Endurance: A Year in Space, A Lifetime of Discovery

“I miss the sound of children playing, which always sounds the same no matter their language.”
― Scott Kelly, Endurance: A Year in Space, A Lifetime of Discovery

“I preferred a shorter, more compelling quotation: “The sea is selective, slow at recognition of effort and aptitude, but fast at sinking the unfit.”
― Scott Kelly, Endurance: A Year in Space, A Lifetime of Discovery

“Later, as I reflect on the situation, I realize that if the satellite had in fact hit us, we probably wouldn’t even have known it. When an aircraft flies into a mountain in bad weather, at five hundred miles per hour, there is little left to tell the story of what went wrong: this crash would have taken place at a speed seventy times that. When I used to work on investigations of aircraft mishaps as a Navy test pilot, I would sometimes reflect that a crew might never have known that anything had gone wrong. Misha, Gennady, and I would have gone from grumbling to one another in our cold Soyuz to being blasted in a million directions as diffused atoms, all in the space of a millisecond. Our neurological systems would not even have had time to process the incoming data into conscious thought. The energy involved in a collision between two large objects at 35,000 miles per hour would be similar to that of a nuclear bomb. I think of that time I almost flew an F-14 into the water and would have disappeared without a trace. I don’t know whether this comforts me or disturbs me.”
― Scott Kelly, Endurance: A Year in Space, A Lifetime of Discovery

“Ah, okay, I understand,” Gennady says, nodding, his signature smile starting to emerge. “It’s from when the Russian diet consisted mostly of potatoes, cabbage, and vodka. Dill gets rid of farts.”
― Scott Kelly, Endurance: A Year in Space, A Lifetime of Discovery

“Earth’s atmosphere is naturally resistant to objects entering from space. Moving at the high speed of orbit, any object will create friction with the air—enough friction that most objects simply burn up from the heat. This is a fact that generally works to our advantage, as it protects the planet from the many meteoroids and orbital debris that would otherwise rain down unexpectedly. And we take advantage of it when we fill visiting vehicles with trash and then set them loose to burn up in the atmosphere. But it’s also what makes a return from space so difficult and dangerous.”
― Scott Kelly, Endurance: A Year in Space, A Lifetime of Discovery

“Early in our two-week quarantine I go out to the banya to find a naked Misha beating on a naked Gennady with birch branches. The first time I saw this scene I was a bit taken aback, but once I experienced the banya myself, followed by a dip in a freezing cold pool of water and a homemade Russian beer, I completely understood the appeal.”
― Scott Kelly, Endurance: A Year in Space, A Lifetime of Discovery

“I’ve learned that most problems aren’t rocket science, but when they are rocket science, you should ask a rocket scientist.”
― Scott Kelly, Endurance: A Year in Space, A Lifetime of Discovery

“We step into our little boxes and wait for the head of the Russian space agency to ask us each in turn, again, if we are ready for our flight. It’s sort of like getting married, except whenever you’re asked a question you say, “We are ready for the flight” instead of “I do.” I’m sure the American rituals would seem just as alien to the Russians: before flying on the space shuttle, we would get suited up in our orange launch-and-entry suits, stand around a table in the Operations and Checkout Building, and then play a very specific version of lowball poker. We couldn’t go out to the launchpad until the commander had lost a round (by getting the highest hand), using up his or her bad luck for the day. No one remembers exactly how this tradition got started. Probably some crew did it first and came back alive, so everyone else had to do it too.”
― Scott Kelly, Endurance: A Year in Space, A Lifetime of Discovery

“The things we want to say to our loved ones before we might be about to die in a fireball above Kazakhstan are not the things we would want to say while the assembled press from a number of countries listen from rows of chairs and write down our every word.”
― Scott Kelly, Endurance: A Year in Space, A Lifetime of Discovery

“As we start the journey, translating hand over hand along the rails, I notice again how much damage has been done to the outside of the station by micrometeoroids and orbital debris. It’s remarkable to see the pits in the metal handrails going all the way through like bullet holes. I’m shocked again to see them.”
― Scott Kelly, Endurance: A Year in Space, A Lifetime of Discovery

“I smell something strangely familiar and unmistakable, a strong burned metal smell, like the smell of sparklers on the Fourth of July. Objects that have been exposed to the vacuum of space have this unique smell on them, like the smell of welding—the smell of space.”
― Scott Kelly, Endurance: A Year in Space, A Lifetime of Discovery

“I think of a saying I once heard that was attributed to the Navy SEALs: “Slow is efficient. Efficient is fast. Slow is fast.”
― Scott Kelly, Endurance: A Year in Space, A Lifetime of Discovery

“I've heard it said that the children of conflict seekers are raised to have the emotional control their parents lack and then some -that fighters raise peacemakers.”
― Scott Kelly, Endurance: A Year in Space, A Lifetime of Discovery

“Gennady, Misha, and I all served in our militaries before being chosen to fly in space, and though it’s something we never talk about, we all know we could have been ordered to kill one another. Now we are taking part in the largest peaceful international collaboration in history. When people ask whether the space station is worth the expense, this is something I always point out. What is it worth to see two former bitter enemies transform weapons into transport for exploration and the pursuit of scientific knowledge? What is it worth to see former enemy nations turn their warriors into crewmates and lifelong friends? This is impossible to put a dollar figure on, but to me it’s one of the things that makes this project worth the expense, even worth risking our lives.”
― Scott Kelly, Endurance: A Year in Space, A Lifetime of Discovery

“I pay close attention to the primaries of both parties, and though I don’t tend to be a worrier, I start to worry. Sometimes before going to sleep I look out the windows of the Cupola at the planet below. What the hell is going on down there?”
― Scott Kelly, Endurance: A Year in Space, A Lifetime of Discovery

“In my half-awake state it occurs to me that one day we’re all going to be dead, that we will all be dead much longer than we were alive. In a sense I feel I know what it will be like, because we were all “dead” once, before we were born. For each of us, there was a moment when we became self-aware, realized that we were alive, and the nothingness before that wasn’t particularly objectionable. This thought, strange as it may be, is reassuring.”
― Scott Kelly, Endurance: A Year in Space, A Lifetime of Discovery

“It wasn’t until years later that I understood that a management failure doomed Challenger as much as the O-ring failure. Engineers working on the solid rocket boosters had raised concerns multiple times about the performance of the O-rings in cold weather. In a teleconference the night before Challenger’s launch, they had desperately tried to talk NASA managers into delaying the mission until the weather got warmer. Those engineers’ recommendations were not only ignored, they were left out of reports sent to the higher-level managers who made the final decision about whether or not to launch. They knew nothing about the O-ring problems or the engineers’ warnings, and neither did the astronauts who were risking their lives. The presidential commission that investigated the disaster recommended fixes to the solid rocket boosters, but more important, they recommended broad changes to the decision-making process at NASA, recommendations that changed the culture at NASA—at least for a while.”
― Scott Kelly, Endurance: A Year in Space, A Lifetime of Discovery