Astronaut Buzz Aldrin Wants To Establish Permanent Human Settlement On Mars
NEW YORK (WLNY) -- Is it possible for humans to go to Mars?
For Buzz Aldrin, the second man to walk on the moon, it's a very real possibility.
He discusses his ideas for a permanent settlement on the so-called "red planet" in his new book, "Mission to Mars: My Vision For Space Exploration."
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Dr. Aldrin joined us on The Couch to discuss all things outer space.
"Mars is the most habitable planet other than the Earth," Dr. Aldrin said. "It has 24 hour and 30 minutes a day, and it takes about 2 years to go around, and it has seasons. It looks like there has been a lot of water there in the past...there's a little bit of atmosphere, so you don't need a total pressure suit."
Dr. Aldrin added that his discovery of cycling orbits in 1985 paved the way, so to speak, making it "relatively easy" to arrive on Mars.
"When you get there, it's very complicated to get back, to send the fuel there, so people are gonna stay there," he said. "We're going to establish a permanent settlement."
In his book, Dr. Aldrin discusses the history of space flight, including a reflective, not nostalgic, look at the people, technologies and steps that were taken to accomplish America's Apollo moon landings, and plots a course of future exploration.
"We can do an awful lot with our experience by leading the other nations in a corporation or an authority where we occupy places that are not on the surface or in orbit but are stationary places, where we can control robots that are doing science."
