First Quote Added
April 10, 2026
Latest Quote Added
"I thought the American public was supporting Apollo not because they wanted science or even because they wanted exploration, they wanted to show those “dirty commies” that America [was still #1 technologically]."
"We had simulated essentially everything we could think of or anything anybody could think of on that flight, all previous flights, and in centrifuges, in zero G airplanes, and procedure trainers and that kind of stuff. And yet the very first seconds of the flight were a total surprise to everybody because the Saturn V which is a big tall rocket, kind of skinny, more like a whip antenna on your automobile, [and we were] like a bug on the end of a whip…"
"But, the most impressive aspect of the flight was [when] we were in lunar orbit. We’d been going backwards and upside down, didn’t really see the Earth or the Sun, and when we rolled around and came around and saw the first Earth rise. [T]hat certainly was, by far, the most impressive thing. To see this very delicate, colorful orb which to me looked like a Christmas tree ornament coming up over this very stark, ugly lunar landscape really contrasted..."
"So here was this orb looking like a Christmas tree ornament, very fragile, not [an infinite] expanse [of] granite … [and seemingly of] a physical insignificance and yet it was our home…"
"I’m not that famous, and I’m certainly not glib, so maybe I’d really ought to [get real] work for a living.’... [T]he shareholders at General Dynamics couldn’t have cared less whether I had been at the Moon or not. So it helped me some but not all that much."
"But sooner or later people will be able to buy a ride into space."
"That photograph, shared globally and always in the public domain, has since served to educate and inspire: The Earth we saw rising over the battered grey lunar surface was small and delicate, a magnificent spot of color in the vast blackness of space. Once-distant places appeared inseparably close. Borders that once rendered division vanished. All of humanity appeared joined together on this glorious-but-fragile sphere."
"From there, the blue-and-white glory of Earth, the only color amidst the blackness of space, became a beacon."
"We set out to explore the moon and instead discovered the Earth."
Young though he was, his radiant energy produced such an impression of absolute reliability that Hedgewar made him the first sarkaryavah, or general secretary, of the RSS.
- Gopal Mukund Huddar
Largely because of the influence of communists in London, Huddar's conversion into an enthusiastic supporter of the fight against fascism was quick and smooth. The ease with which he crossed from one worldview to another betrays the fact that he had not properly understood the world he had grown in.
Huddar would have been 101 now had he been alive. But then centenaries are not celebrated only to register how old so and so would have been and when. They are usually celebrated to explore how much poorer our lives are without them. Maharashtrian public life is poorer without him. It is poorer for not having made the effort to recall an extraordinary life.
I regret I was not there to listen to Balaji Huddar's speech [...] No matter how many times you listen to him, his speeches are so delightful that you feel like listening to them again and again.
By the time he came out of Franco's prison, Huddar had relinquished many of his old ideas. He displayed a worldview completely different from that of the RSS, even though he continued to remain deferential to Hedgewar and maintained a personal relationship with him.