Bernard Adolph Schriever Quotes

A word is necessary on the relationship between military need and scientific feasibility in space technology. In the long haul, our safety as a nation may depend upon our achieving “space superiority.” Several decades from now, the important battles may not be sea battles or air battles, but space battles, and we should be spending a certain fraction of our national resources to insure that we do not lag in obtaining space supremacy.

Consequently, my prognoses … go from those which are reasonably firm to those which might be considered visionary. Fortunately, there is a considerable overlap between the advances in the state of the art which are required for firm and for visionary military needs.

Perhaps not only initially but for all time, space technology will include as its most characteristic problem the need for going from the surface of one celestial body to another with successful passage through the atmosphere of each.

However, before man can be committed to space vehicles, a tremendous amount of human factors research will be necessary.

Our development philosophy includes two elements: a philosophy of testing and a dual approach. Stated simply, the test philosophy requires a great deal of component reliability testing at the earliest possible test level in order to insure reliability of components before proceeding to subsystem testing, captive system testing, and on to launch.

I am deeply engrossed in man's first concerted attempt to penetrate outer space. The compelling motive for the development of space technology is the requirement for national defense.