The Calculating Stars Quotes
"Do you remember where you were when the Meteor hit? Of course you remember."
"If I had known how long the stars were going to be hidden, I would have spent a lot more time outside with the telescope."
"The morning light filtered through silver snowfall and did nothing to warm the room."
"As I sat there with my eyes squeezed shut, the light faded."
"The radio continued to play and it was still 'Sixty Minute Man.'"
"I just need to keep my body temperature from dropping any more."
"The world groaned and roared and wind howled through the empty window frames."
"We should have seen it. The meteorite. We should have seen it coming."
"The problem is that Parker had mentioned it to... someone... probably several someones... and now it’s spread through the military as, 'I heard there was a possibility that this was an offensive action by the Russians.'"
"We needed no convincing at all. I grabbed his hand and pulled him into the study."
"The Earth is going to get warmer. The water vapor… that’s the problem."
"Medicinal. And you should have a double too."
"We’re trying to establish a colony. How exactly does he expect to do that without any women?"
"I really did need something to do with my hands."
"The problem is, gentlemen, that the Earth is going to get warmer."
"In 1824, Joseph Fourier described an effect that Alexander Bell later called ‘the greenhouse effect.’"
"I’ll see if I can get you a meeting with the president."
"There’s a cascading effect that happens when you lie about not feeling well."
"I’m supposed to go volunteer at the hospital after the meeting with Eisenhower."
"They aren’t going to attack the Soviets, and that would have been far worse."
"The world’s first space station is a huge spinning wheel of four sausage-shaped links."
"This is Miss Ida Peaks. Some of the finest pilots you’ll ever meet."
"And we’ll make them. But to do that, we have to show them we can fly first."
"We each dipped in an individual arc, passing the other planes in an intricate choreography designed to avoid the wake of turbulence from each other’s slipstreams."
"Behind us, in red smoke against a silver sky, we wrote the word MARS."
"I lived because of training that I received as one of the Women Airforce Service Pilots during the war."
"I’m standing on the wing of a Mustang flown by Mrs. Nathaniel York, who just survived a near fatal midair accident."
"I have doctorates in physics and mathematics from Stanford."
"You have to work hard, too. What do I need to do to be an astronaut?"
"You need to make a list of all the things you need to learn, and then start working, all right? Someday, you and I are going to be on Mars together."
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"What do you say to that? You either understood or pretended you did, which was actually more useful for Nathaniel's purposes. I didn’t throw up. Not even once."
"Having folks call me that? Having my niece do it? It was like being jealous of a character on TV, except that character was me. Can you be jealous of yourself?"
"All the space program is doing is making another basket for eggs."
"If a woman tells him, he’ll have to either pretend he understands it, or admit that he’s not smart enough to be making a decision on this."
"I was terrified, but the reaction wasn’t as… bright? Does that make sense? I was still afraid, but it was like a cloud had come between the fear and me."
"Then Parker would use that to talk about how hysterical women were."
"Taking the pill was a sign that I had failed. No matter what the doctors said about anxiety being a genuine illness, I couldn’t shake my mother’s voice: What will people think?"
"I was smart. Heck. When I wasn’t being modest, I was brilliant. I knew that. But the doctor and Nicole were both right, and if this had been any other condition, I would not have balked at medication."
"I was a little jealous of her for getting to dance with her brother. Or anyone, really."
"This was the closest I have ever come to outright lying to him, and my skin felt as if it were coated with a layer of slime."
"They’d brought me into a room with a literal Nazi. Had that been Parker’s idea?"
"It had not occurred to me that one tactic would be to appeal to the male astronauts about the benefits of… marital duties in space."
"He was a literal Nazi and I was giving tacit approval to his presence by saying nothing. Because if I did? Then Parker would use that to talk about how hysterical women were."
"What will people think? What would my husband think?"
"He turned back to the table. "Right… We begin by looking at the budgetary benefits of using women as astronauts, due to our lower mass and oxygen consumption."
"You’re never going into space if I have anything to say about it."
"I do not do well when there is a problem that I can’t do anything to solve."
"That sounds as if I should be doing kicks in a chorus line."
"Well, this astronaut has some calculations to do."
"I’m going to do everything in my power to keep me from being an astronaut."
"Whatever Parker said in the stairwell, I was still an astronaut. I’d been selected, and, by God, I was going to go into space."
"Science. Followed by a nice healthy dinner of kerosene and liquid oxygen."
"We have whole conversations without any actual nouns."
"This was not the hardship for me that he seemed to think it was."
"The idea that Parker might put you through that, deliberately, because he’s made you afraid to use a tool that helps—I would like to punch him."
"We weren’t chattering or doing any of the clucking that you’d expect from the movies."
"I thought they were finally going to let us go up in the T-33s, but all we did was sit in the cockpit and powder our noses."
"I am all too familiar with the sound of retching."
"I’ve kept myself off crew lists. But there’s a difference between deferring missions and being grounded."
"The atmosphere in the firing room crackled with such intense focus."
"You’d think it was a war wound, the way everyone is carrying on over him."
"Helen Liu. Already a pilot, and has jet experience."
"That would disqualify half of the United States."
"Is that—oh. Is that what’s been affecting your reaction times in testing?"
"You’re telling me that saving our lives wasn’t a high-pressure situation?"
"All I’m saying is that the floor of Mission Control is completely different from space."
"Better yet: Here’s to the Lady Astronaut Club."
"The ship shudders and lurches against its bolts."
"Twelve, eleven, ten, nine. Ignition sequence starts…"