A man is a fabulous nuisance in space right now. He's not worth all the cost of putting him up there and keeping him comfortable and working.
James Van AllenAll this is very good in theory, but in practice, you take a piece of iron, wind a wire around it, then plug the wire in. The core gets hot, the wires smoke, and the fuse blows. So you see, there are practical limitations to theory.
James Van AllenAs soon as we started looking at them, we saw the most remarkable situation. My first thought was, "Great guns! Something's gone wrong with the apparatus!" But then we got later North American tapes and everything seemed normal again.
James Van AllenAfter a vast research program, which depended very heavily upon the use of a number of highspeed computers, I am pleased to offer you the result: "Space is that in which everything else is." In other words, "Space is the hole that we are in."
James Van Allen