"Optimism, pessimism, fuck that; we're going to make it happen. As God is my bloody witness, I'm hell-bent on making it work."
Elon Musk, CEO of Space-X
after failure of the third launch of Falcon-1
interview with Wired
"Space exploration is risky. It's hard. And actually, let me say here that I feel like we need to take on more risk than we have been in space exploration.
"The public doesn't like risk, and they hate failure. But failures happen. They shouldn't happen for stupid reasons. But if they happen when you were trying something risky, you learn. That teaches you something. At least it should. And you try harder next time."
-Lou Friedman, on the failure of the Cosmos-1 solar sail
page by Geoffrey A. Landis, 2005; revision 2008.