If we die, do not mourn for us. This is a risky business we're in, and we accept those risks. The space program is too valuable to this country to be halted for too long if a disaster should ever happen.
Interpretation
This quote emphasizes the importance of accepting risks in pursuit of significant advancements, such as space exploration.
Gus Grissom's quote reflects the acceptance of risks inherent in the space program and suggests that the pursuit of knowledge and technological advancement is paramount, even in the face of potential disasters. He encourages a perspective that values the contributions of space exploration to society, arguing that the benefits outweigh the dangers involved.
In practice
During a speech at a space conference, one might use this quote to highlight the importance of continuing space missions despite risks.
No, you sort of have to put that out of your mind. There's always a possibility that you can have a catastrophic failure, of course. This can happen on any flight. It can happen on the last one as well as the first one. You just plan as best you can to take care of all these eventualities, and you get a well-trained crew, and you go fly.
If we die, we want people to accept it. We are in a risky business, and we hope that if anything happens to us, it will not delay the program. The conquest of space is worth the risk of life.
As a theoretician, I am proud to be part of a counter revolution... discovering that quantum field theory language was not dead and finished but had not really been explored thoroughly enough.
There is in my opinion a great similarity between the problems provided by the mysterious behavior of the atom and those provided by the present economic paradoxes confronting the world.
It is better to have 100 functions operate on one data structure than to have 10 functions operate on 10 data structures.
Research is formalized curiosity. It is poking and prying with a purpose.
There are 10^11 stars in the galaxy. That used to be a huge number. But it's only a hundred billion. It's less than the national deficit! We used to call them astronomical numbers. Now we should call them economical numbers.
Science does not aim at establishing immutable truths and eternal dogmas; its aim is to approach the truth by successive approximations, without claiming that at any stage final and complete accuracy has been achieved.
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