"all truths are easy to understand once they are discovered; the point is to discover...
TRANSCRIPT
"All truths are easy to understand once they are discovered; the point is to discover them." Galileo Galilei (1564-1642)
Venus-Earth-Earth Gravity Assist a.k.a.
“VEEGA” was a first. The mission planning
guys figured out how to do that with Galileo.
"My car license plate says `VEEGA,'
…Every morning, I go out and I see the word.”
Roger DiehlTrajectory specialist
"I popped in these two wonderful 8x10’s and became the first human being to see a stereo image of an asteroid at high resolution!
That entire weekend, anyone who came close to my door was dragged over:
’Look at this!’
You know, the mailman, the babysitter. That was really a thrill."
Paul GeisslerPlanetary geologist
Galileo was the first spacecraft to observe an impact into a planetary body,
when comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 crashed into Jupiter.
“With only a week to go, I'm really excited. It's hard to sleep at night…
I have to just give up … and write out what I'm thinking… Even doing that I can't always get back to sleep, but sometimes it works.”
Jim EricksonNovember 27, 1995Probe Release
“The signal came about 6 minutes later than I had been expecting, so I was getting very fearful that something had gone wrong.
When the confirmation finally came through,I was nearly in tears from the joy of knowing that we had done it!”
Leslie TamppariDecember 11, 1995Probe Release
“Solar System's Largest Moon Likely has a Hidden Ocean”
NASA Press ReleaseGanymede
December 16, 2000
"It's not going to go on forever. Everything has to end.
It's going to be a sad day though.”
Andy Ingersoll Scientist
“If we found life someplace elseit would give us a vastlynew perspective on existence.
We would probably realize that we weren't quite so important as we thought we were.
I mean, it might take us down a peg, which … could be useful.”
Randy Tufts Former geologist at the University of Arizona(1949-2002)