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
It's real easy to manufacture what you think the people want to hear. But that's not very honest.
Most people never believed in the real possibility of going to the moon, and neither did I until I was in my twenties.
I believe that space travel will one day become as common as airline travel is today. I'm convinced, however, that the true future of space travel does not lie with government agencies -- NASA is still obsessed with the idea that the primary purpose of the space program is science -- but real progress will come from private companies competing to provide the ultimate adventure ride, and NASA will receive the trickle-down benefits.
Mars could very well be a staging location for the resources of the asteroid belt. We have to learn how to get a payback somewhere, but it's beyond Mars that the real payoff will come from minerals.
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.
Training was very extensive, and we dealt with many recoveries from emergencies, and fortunately, participating and observing and existing through the reality of space was a once-in-a-lifetime experience and it was not marred by unexpected hazards or catastrophes.
Fear, to people who have been in aviation and combat (such as) fighter pilots ... is something you learn how to deal with and set aside, ... It's a very disabling emotion. You want to be alert as you possibly can.
I was motivated to improve the U.S. strategy of going back to the moon in 1985. That's a long time ago. Going back to the moon would be a great achievement for tourism adventure flights.
The achievements of Apollo were so bold and our subsequent efforts so timid that the energy of those years seems like a youthful dream,
why can't the average citizen? That's what I've been promoting in the last several years.
We should've asked China to be a portion of the space station. We should've worked out ways that we can... just give away the technology that we have that puts things up into space, with cooperation up above the atmosphere that's needed to help each other.
People come up to me and say, 'It's too bad the space program got canceled.' This is not the case, and yet that is what most of the public thinks has happened.
Mars is much closer to the characteristics of Earth. It has a fall, winter, summer and spring. North Pole, South Pole, mountains and lots of ice. No one is going to live on Venus; no one is going to live on Jupiter.
I am not sure about Bill Nelson. I haven't heard him say, 'Let's junk the NASA plan to send humans to the moon.' He's not about to say that. That would not be very popular.