Buzz Aldrin
Buzz Aldrin
Buzz Aldrinis an American engineer and former astronaut. As the Lunar Module Pilot on Apollo 11, he was one of the first two humans to land on the Moon, and the second person to walk on it. He set foot on the Moon at 03:15:16 on July 21, 1969, following mission commander Neil Armstrong. He is a former U.S. Air Force officer with the Command Pilot rating...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionAstronaut
Date of Birth20 January 1930
CityGlen Ridge, NJ
CountryUnited States of America
Heavy lifting doesn't need to be heavy spending if we do the job right.
When we get there, if we don't find any life on Mars, from that point on there will be life on Mars because we'll bring it there, whether it's germs and leftover urine bags, whatever it is.
When we can demonstrate that we can take off horizontally and put something into orbit, then we can begin to talk about increasing the amount of payload. But to say, 'I'm going to do that and put people into orbit' is a real leap.
Returning to the Moon with NASA astronauts is not the best usage of our resources. Because OUR resources should be directed to outward, beyond-the-moon, to establishing habitation and laboratories on the surface of Mars that can be built, assembled, from the close-by moons of Mars.
I'm in favor of changing the destination of humans. There are a lot of manned missions that can be done, but not in the direction of the moon.
Space is not just going up and coming back down again. Space is getting into orbit and being there, living there, establishing a presence, a permanence.
When the time comes to start building deep space transports and refueling rocket tankers, it will be the commercial industry that steps up, not another government-owned, government-managed enterprise.
For a million dollars, the Russians would take two people, a million apiece, around the moon and back. However, stories, videos that come from the space station, and other people, are a great inspiration to young people for an exciting career field.
When I was a little kid, we only knew about our nine planets. Since then, we've downgraded Pluto but have discovered that other solar systems and stars are common. So life is probably quite prevalent.
My expertise is the space program and what it should be in the future based on my experience of looking at the transitions that we've made between pre-Sputnik days and getting to the moon.
The moon I see now is the same moon I saw before. Except that before, when I looked at it, it was in anticipation of what it would be like when I got there. That's behind me now.
There is very little doubt, in my mind, that what the next monumental achievement of humanity will be the first landing by an Earthling, a human being, on the planet Mars.
The society of life on Mars, or the challenge of making Mars more livable, will have significant benefits on our attempts to modify and change in some ways the environment here on Earth.
By venturing into space, we improve life for everyone here on Earth - scientific advances and innovations that come from this kind of research create products we use in our daily lives.