Buzz Aldrin is one of only twelve human beings in the history of mankind that has walked on the moon. But the moon isn’t quite enough for Aldrin. Buzz wants nothing more than for mankind to set foot on Mars… and he wants them to stay there. Of course, lots of people think we should go to the red planet, but Buzz Aldrin has been to the moon with less technology than you carry around on your smartphone. Aldrin understands what it will take to send human beings to Mars.
During a panel discussion at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology last week, Buzz Aldrin made his views very clear on the subject of colonizing the red planet.
“It will cost the world – and the U.S. – billions and billions of dollars to put these people there, and you’re going to bring them back? What are you going to do when you bring them back here that can possibly compare to the value that they would be if they stayed there and Mars wasn’t empty? And then, they helped to work with the next group and it builds up a cadre of people. When we’ve got 100 – or whatever it is – then we start bringing people back.”
Buzz hasn’t just started this crusade to colonize the fourth stone from the Sun. In July, Buzz Aldrin was interviewed by The Washington Post, and he was eager for colonization then, too.
When speaking about NASA in that interview, Aldrin didn’t sound optimistic.
“I believe that we are — in other people’s terminology — adrift right now. We cannot take our own people to the space station. We invested 100 billion dollars.”
At a Reddit AMA in July, Buzz was asked whether or not Americans should look away from NASA and towards private spacecraft to take us to Mars; companies which are perfecting commercial space travel while NASA tries to do more with less and stagnates in the process.
“I have considered whether a landing on Mars could be done by the private sector.It conflicts with my very strong idea, concept, conviction, that the first human beings to land on Mars should not come back to Earth. They should be the beginning of a build-up of a colony/settlement, I call it a ‘permanence.’”
Buzz Aldrin’s good friend Norm Augustine was with Aldrin when Buzz testified on Capitol Hill that mankind should go to Mars and stay there.
Norm asked his old friend, “Who would ever want to do that?”
Buzz Aldrin answered, “Did you ever hear of the pilgrims?”
[Image via The Huffington Post ]