Aldrin: NASA Needs To Put People On Mars

WASHINGTON — Former Apollo astronaut Buzz Aldrin says NASA should set its sights on a bigger target in the future: Mars.

Aldrin made the comments on the eve of the 40th anniversary of his landing on the moon on the Apollo 11 mission. He says the space agency was right to stop sending men to the moon back in 1972.

Aldrin says Mars is "much more suitable to earthlings, much more habitable. It's possibly the source of life."

He also recalled taking his first steps on the moon, a place that was "so desolate, so totally lifeless. It probably hadn't changed much in 100,000 years."

Aldrin, who spoke on "Fox News Sunday," was to appear Sunday evening in Washington with fellow Apollo 11 crew members Neil Armstrong and Michael Collins.

Comments

[Chipher]

You first, Buzz! And don't forget to text us if you need clean underwear,
'cause yor Ma and I will be down at the food stamp office and WalMart,
fixin' to buy us swimwear, for when Virgin Space opens that'er resort!

[C0Y0TE2]

NASA is selling off the obsolete space shuttles and shuttle engines for cheap.

Any takers?

[jsarets]

They're not selling the SSMEs. They'll be reused as expendable engines for Ares V or Jupiter launch vehicles. I believe they're also going to reuse the auxiliary power units, hydraulic pumps, and general-purpose computers from the orbiters.

[Mondayboy]

I hope Buzz isn't losing his mind. The whole space program is a boondoggle and has to be scrapped. It is 100% useless and a waste of taxpayers' money.

[JackRusselTerrier]

Some have suggested we are lagging behind our space program by decades. Some have suggested we will gain new technology. Some have even suggested we have never gone to the Moon in the first place ( I find that one particularly funny by the way )

This all comes down to priorities. Should we got to Mars? Someday maybe. Today we have bigger problems. The prestige of going is foolish pride nothing more.

We are also lagging behind in other technologies. Since Reagan took down the solar panels on the White House and eliminated tax cuts for installation, we have been lagging behind in alternative energy development. We are stuck in the mindset where we have used our military instead of our minds. Oil is a finite resource. Mars is a long way off in distance and time. We are facing great problems in our society and we will not find the solutions on Mars or the Moon. We gained new technology, not by going to the Moon, but by investing money and devoting scientist to a cause. There are some who think we need to escape from Earth because our own planet is doomed. If we can't make it here - we have no chance of making it anywhere else folks.

Let's fix our lobbyist controlled government, health care, poverty, joblessness , homelessness, malnutrition and a number of other problems. Star Trek was a great series. Let's try reality for a change.

[C0Y0TE2]

Great post!

The latest star Trek movie was the best Scifi since Serenity which has been repeatedly chosen as best scifi ever..

[Stilts9]

Good idea Buzz, let's send Rupert Murdoch for starters.

[framante]

Let's face it, all rhetoric aside, the trip to the moon was a stunt designed to show up the Russians. It carried a cost our nation could easily afford. A trip to Mars needs to be multinational since no nation can bear the cost alone. It's a different ball game, and when the cost/benefit analyses are done, most nations will find something better to do.

[josephebacon]

The sad truth is that America no longer has the will to do anything even close to a Mars landing. America has been on the downturn since the first oil embargo in October 1973. We have become so self centered that it is impossible to come together for anything of any importance. Seeing the rise of religious extremism which is trumping science is another sign of America's downturn.

I fully expect China to get to the moon before we do. And as we continue with our bible studies, China will get to Mars, too. We won't care, we'll be too busy awaiting the rapture.

[C0Y0TE2]

Oh look! And we were just talking about technological fragility....

One of only two t.oilets aboard the international space station broke down, right in the middle of complicated work being conducted by the two crews. The pump separator apparently flooded.

There have never been so many people – 13 – together in space.

The Russian-built, multimillion-dollar toilet flew up on a shuttle last November.

[RuinedSaint]

Hey, my care broke down... I should just get used to walking; no point fixing it or getting a new one.

P.S., You're a quitter.

[rabiddog6708]

Let's send Dubya and Cheney to Mars on a one way trip. I'm all for that program.

[PDXTransplant]

I have Buzz Aldrin's autograph!! Very nice man.

[Philm35]

I've been a huge fan of the space program, but right now, we do not need to explore Mars. If it were up to me, NASA would be re-purposed to devote all of their vast science and engineering prowess (and budget) to developing a renewable, safe and affordable alternative to fossil fuels, and putting into practical use for transportation, home and business energy requirements within 5 years.

[SonofLiberty1]

So you would rather some other nation getting the prestige..and the jobs and first rights to the technology developed?

Not on my watch you don't!

[darthmaul]

Think about what you are saying. What exactly do we "get" by being first to Mars? Do you really think that there will be "jobs" lost. The sad truth is that these "jobs" will be paid by taxpayers that actually produce something of value here on earth. It would be far better to apply funds, research and our technical prowess to green technology and sea exploration or for that matter just about any other endeavor other then going to Mars. Going to Mars is like throwing money down the proverbial rat hole.

[weatherwaxx]

Yes! Let's send people to Mars.

Start with Palin, Cheney, Rove, Bush, Rice, Gonzales, Rumsfelt, Bachmann, and allll their friends!

[Quaoar]

Get your @$$ to Mars!

[C0Y0TE2]

In the last decade, out of 10 Mars missions, only 3 succeeded. The rest failed. (one of them failed when a miles to kilometers conversion was done erroneously)

And NONE required a take-off from Mars back to earth.

Some folks are arguing the importance of our Lunar landing success to the American psyche. Others are defending failures as merely a stumble on the road to success. My question is simply this: what would have happened to the American psyche if the Moonshot had failed?

What would happen to the American psyche if a very iffy manned Mars shot failed?

~
Hubble was sent up with a defective mirror: custom ground to PRECISION SPECIFICATIONS. A work around was installed to “correct” the faulty images.

Anybody who has owned a computer knows how reliable they are. Imagine a major computer reboot in space a year away from home, floating in a tin can.... We cannot even build a space station that doesn't fall from the sky.

A Russian international experiment to test the ability of astronauts to make such a long trip confined to a tin can ended in failure. The Canadian astronaut participating f.reaked when a Russian cosmonaut wanted an Xmas kiss and she was pulled from the cave psychologically crushed.

There is no way that a multi-year space adventure with a landing and take-off from Mars with humans will succeed this century without some major adjustments in our know-how.

[RuinedSaint]

"There is no way that a multi-year space adventure with a landing and take-off from Mars with humans will succeed this century without some major adjustments in our know-how."

Exactly why we need to invest in researching the technology.

At the same time, Kennedy and the Apollo program showed us that an audacious time table is equally required.

[C0Y0TE2]

What would happen to the American psyche if a very iffy manned Mars shot failed?

[C0Y0TE2]

What would happen to the American psyche if a very iffy manned Mars s.hot failed?

[CptRich]

The Hubble was a failure of the people at PerkinElmer, not NASA. They cut the mirror wrong and they all knew it. It was a PR stunt of that divisions VP, he transposed 2 digits when entering the parameters into the cutter and the cut was blown immediately. Even though they had 2 spare blanks available they hushed the whole thing up to cover that VP's butt. I worked with one of the optical engineers from PE in 1985 and he spilled the whole story. I didn't want to believe him until the first results after Hubble finally did launch.

[SonofLiberty1]

Zivjeli,

Not that you would agree with anything we say but, the surface of the moon is so bright (you would know this if you were an astronomer) that it was hard to see the stars. Astronauts could if they walked into the shadow of the Lunar Module.

And then it's DAYLIGHT!!!! So the cameras were set for short exposures not long and the tv cameras the same.

[lentinelia]

I'm all for going to Mars.
I'm all for colonizing Mars.

The only thing that makes me a little uncomfortable is the fact that I am used to air.
I like air.
Mars doesn't appear to have any.
This could put a considerable strain on social interaction.

[zola77]

LOL!

[duckintheface]

I'm sorry to see so many progressives missing the importance of colonizing Mars. My dad was an engineer at NASA at the time of the first Moon landing. The call to go into space was a uniting and inspiring force. Mars represents a much bigger step because it is NOT just an engineering project or even a scientific project. It is the actual expansion of humanity.. a far bigger leap than the colonization of the New World by Europe.

When you say we can't afford to go to Mars, what does that mean. The growth of our economy is driven by advances in science that happen when we invest in the future. If we don't make those investments, we will not be able to afford anything.

Now let's cut to the chase. It's not that expensive to colonize Mars. First of all, forget the round trip. We should go to colonize and stay there. Just dropping the fuel required to carry the return fuel to Mars would allow a huge cargo of equipment to be used to build habitat out of Martian rock and soil. There is water, light and soil and carbon dioxide there. We can establish agriculture in the bottoms of the deepest canyons where there is surface water and the highest atmospheric pressure.

And the ultimate reason for establishing humanity on another planet is to ensure the survival of our species in the certain eventuality that we will be hit by another mass extinction event asteroid.

[RuinedSaint]

"I'm sorry to see so many progressives missing the importance of colonizing Mars."

I'm a progressive and I think colonizing Mars is an imperative.

[duckintheface]

I'm glad to hear that. I have many liberal friends (I'm a flaming liberal myself) who don't understand the need to expand our presence. Of course we need health care and alternative energy and education. We can easily have all that AND establish a self supporting colony on Mars. We just have to be willing to pay for the INVESTMENTS needed. The recent history of the US is that all the money goes to the super-rich so they can have two yachts instead of just one.... while we neglect investments in the future.

We need a bit of the shirtsleeve pioneering spirit of NASA in the 1960s and a bit less of the political posturing.

[Hirnlego]

I'm all for it too..I hope to see man on mars in my lifetime.. (and not just because of that reason)

[framante]

Is Mars immune from asteroid hits? Let's face it, one way or the other our species is destined to be toast. We once didn't exist, and sooner or later that day will come again.

[Neophile]

No, but the likelihood of simultaneous hits on mars and earth is near zero. If one gets hit the other is likely to survive and have the opportunity to repopulate.