Alan Bean Quotes

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Alan Bean

Profession : Astronaut

Birth : March 15, 1932

As I ran along, I remember... saying to myself, 'You know, this is really the moon. We're really here... That's the Earth up there.' And I said it two or three times to myself.

Alan Bean

I feel blessed every day when I'm working on these paintings... the first artist to ever go to another world and try to tell stories that people care about.

Alan Bean

I believe that 100, 200, 300 years from now, all these paintings will be around because they're the first paintings of humans doing things off this Earth.

Alan Bean

If you remember back to some of the television we saw, Buzz and Neil on the Moon with Apollo 11. Black and white. They were bouncing around a lot. They were really bouncing on their tip toes. Quite fun to do.

Alan Bean

It was hard for me to believe. I would look down and say, 'This is the moon, this is the moon,' and I would look up and say, 'That's the Earth, that's the Earth,' in my head. So, it was science fiction to us even as we were doing it.

Alan Bean

We're going through all the checklist, getting in position to make the entry and all that... And I think either Pete, Dick, or I said, 'Well, I wonder how those parachutes are doing?' And then someone else said... 'Well, we'll find out in about 55 minutes!'

Alan Bean

The moon is very rugged.

Alan Bean

I can remember walking on the moon.

Alan Bean

At one-sixth gravity in that suit, you have to move in a different way.

Alan Bean

I do not believe that anyone from outer space has ever visited the Earth.

Alan Bean

Just like some day, say, 1000 years from now, when we can go to another star and see a planet, that's what we would do because we will know how to cure cancer, cure birth defects, so we would teach them.

Alan Bean

I was more of a person that liked flying and operating high-performance machinery, and I liked that, the skill it took, the intelligence it took to do that.

Alan Bean

I would say I had zero philosophical thoughts at that time. I was operating on a timed checklist that we've been trained to do, to try to maximize every really minute on the moon.

Alan Bean

On Earth, I weighed 150 pounds; my suit and backpack weighed another 150. 300 pounds. Up there, I weighed only 50. So I could prance around on my toes. It was quite easy to do.

Alan Bean

I had the good fortune and the gift to be one of the 12 men to walk on the moon.

Alan Bean

I feel like there's too many paintings left unpainted that I just don't want to take the time away.

Alan Bean

History has spurts and then is steady, and then maybe even backing up a step, and then forward again.

Alan Bean

But I found that being an artist and doing accurate work is very difficult.

Alan Bean

One of the great things about the universe is that it's fair.

Alan Bean

I found I have to stay painting.

Alan Bean