- Ben Sawyer: [narrating] We dream. It's who we are. Down to our bones, our cells. That instinct to build. That drive to seek beyond what we know. It's in our DNA. We crossed the oceans. We conquered the skies. And when there were no more frontiers on Earth we launched ourselves among the stars.
- Ed Grann: [pre-launch pep-talk] Some of us, if not all of us, will almost certainly die on this mission. Might be in takeoff, might be in landing, might be in the new world itself. Now, you all are the bravest group of women and men I have ever met. I'm damn proud to be here with you. But right now I want you to stop and ask yourself what really is important to you about this mission. And if the answer to that question is not the most important thing in your life, then I'm gonna invite you to walk out that door and go pursue whatever that thing is. And don't ever look back, because no one will ever have the right to hold it against you.
- Andy Weir: We need to go to Mars because it protects us from extinction. There's all sorts of things that could happen on Earth that can kill all the humans on the planet. But once humans are on two different planets the odds of extinction drop to nearly zero.
- Ed Grann: If all went as planned, then we are touched down at the base camp, we are docked, and we're ready to begin the most exciting phase of scientific exploration in human history. And if we haven't, we went into the darkness so that you could find the light.
- Ann Druyan: If I could talk to the first people to stand on the surface of Mars, I would ask them to remember that everything they're about to see, they'll be seeing for our whole species. They'll be experiencing, living a dream, that our recent ancestors would have deemed impossible. And it's not just science fiction anymore. There are people on this planet right this moment that are actually planning and working to perfect the machinery that's necessary to make that possible.
- Elon Musk: I just don't think there's any way to have a self-sustaining Mars base without reusability. Getting the cost down is really fundamental. If wooden sailing ships in the old days were not reusable, I don't think the United States would exist.
- James A. Lovell: There's a segment of people in this world that live on the edge. The talent of these people is evaluating the risk and always the rewards. If you figure that the reward is worth the risk. That, yeah, it's risky. I know I could get killed doing this, but it's doing something that man had not done before. So is it worth it? Mhm, it's worth it!