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Story Musgrave
(19 Aug 1935 - )
American surgeon and astronaut who flew on NASA's first Hubble telescope repair mission and five other Space Shuttle flights, including the maiden voyage of Challenger.
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Science Quotes by Story Musgrave (6 quotes)
Getting out of the comfortable path, that's what exploration is all about.
— Story Musgrave
Interview (22 May 1997). On Academy of Achievement website.
Hubble touches people. When you're looking that far out, you're giving people their place in the universe, it touches people. Science is often visual, so it doesn't need translation. It's like poetry, it touches you.
— Story Musgrave
Interview (22 May 1997). On Academy of Achievement website.
I had no books as a child. I had real machines, and I went out to work in the fields. I was driving farm machinery at five, and fixing it at age seven or eight. It’s no accident that I worked on Hubble 50 to 60 years later. My books were nature; it was very important to how I related to the Earth, and the Earth from space. No doubt when I go into space, I go back into the cool soil of Earth. I’m always thinking of it. Nature was my book. Other people come from that tradition - Emerson, Thoreau, and especially Whitman. Look at what they said in their philosophy - go out and have a direct relationship with nature.
When asked by Discover magazine what books helped inspire his passion as an astronaut.
When asked by Discover magazine what books helped inspire his passion as an astronaut.
— Story Musgrave
'The 1998 Discover Science Gift Guide: Fantastic Voyages Children's Books That Mattered', Discover (Dec 1998).
I think if we had not repaired the telescope, it would have been the end of the space station, because space station requires a huge number of space walks. I think it was fair to use the Hubble space telescope as a test case for space walks, to say, “Can NASA really do what they say they can do up there?”
— Story Musgrave
Interview (22 May 1997). On Academy of Achievement website.
I work for perfection, for perfection's sake. I don't care what the external reasons are. And it's much more like a ballerina on opening night. You've done what you've got to do. When you go out, the purpose is to turn a perfect turn. You are not thinking about the future of the company, you are not thinking about your future, you're not thinking about the critics, it is you and the perfect turn.
[Describing his task of repairing the Hubble Space Telescope.]
[Describing his task of repairing the Hubble Space Telescope.]
— Story Musgrave
Interview (22 May 1997). On Academy of Achievement website.
I’m such a long-term investor, I’ve never really let go and celebrated what I did with the Hubble telescope.
— Story Musgrave
Interview (22 May 1997). On Academy of Achievement website.
See also:
In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion.
(1987) -- 
