I recently had the chance to speak with Aldrin, 83, as part of a promotion for his new book, Mission to Mars. During the wide-ranging, 45-minute interview, Aldrin and I spoke a lot about how to build both political support for, and to pay for an ambitious plan to establish a permanent colony on Mars.

Which is the goal of the second man to walk on the Moon.

The key, Aldrin said, is international cooperation. But he recognizes that in the 21st century we’re not quite the interstellar federal polity that Star Trek’s United Federation of Planets is in the 23rd century.

Aldrin lives in the real world.

Through NASA, the United States presently works with a former enemy, Russia, as well as many European partners, Japan and Canada in a successful international partnership aboard the International Space Station. But that partnership does not include burgeoning space-faring nations such as China and India. Nor, despite NASA administrator Charles Bolden’s controversial comments about the space agency reaching out to Muslims, does it include any Middle Eastern nations, which have deep pockets and ambitions too.

When he flew to the moon, Aldrin saw the United States lead in space as other nations fell behind. More recently he’s seen funding for spaceflight fall behind many other priorities. Now he’s seeing America fall behind in space and doesn’t like it, nor the politics that have led to it.

If America is to succeed in space, it and its closest allies must get their stuff together on Earth, he says. Here, then, is Aldrin speaking about why English-speaking nations should lead the way in space:

“The United States must lead cooperation in Earth orbit and above, emphasizing the English speaking nations — U.S., Great Britain, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and especially India — so that they are a bit more cohesive in their balance to the China-Russia coalition which seems to thwart the United States in many ways. English is the technical language, not German; English is the diplomatic language, we need peace and cooperation above the atmosphere. Openness that will hopefully filter down. There will always be human rights violations, piracy, hacking, stealing things, territorial aggression and I have failed to say that the English nations most likely will be the nations that protect the world against jihadism. Now that’s a sensitive subject for your paper and me. I don’t mind saying that, I’m a private citizen. I grew up as a Protestant. I took communion on the moon. But I’m a little wider in what Einstein would call a cosmic religious understanding.”

Clearly, then Aldrin sees a connection between terrestrial policy and success in space.

A bit later in the interview he discussed his concerns about NASA’s current approach to space (the Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle and Space Launch System) and his concerns that while NASA is trying to rope a small asteroid and maybe bringing it into lunar orbit, China will pass us by.

More Aldrin:
“Obama didn’t cancel the space program. Now I’m a conservative, and always have been. But I’ve worked with whoever is overseeing the space program. Unfortunately Orion, renamed the Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle, is wrong. (Wernher) Von Braun’s big big big lander was multi-purpose crew vehicle in Apollo and we segmented the mission into a command module and a service module. At the moon we had to have a descent and an ascent stage. We really stripped the weight off. Von Braun’s vehicle required two Saturn V rockets. The plan we used required one Saturn V. The big fact is that we went to the moon with one rocket, not two, because we didn’t use a multi-purpose crew vehicle. Orion doesn’t even have enough propulsion to put itself and a lander into a lunar orbit. It puts the United States at a distinct disadvantage even in going to the moon. We’ve got to do more than just Apollo 11 or Apollo 17. All the Chinese have to do is land one Taikonaut, take a few pictures out the window, and launch. And they’ve beat the United States.”

Aldrin isn’t saying NASA should race China back to the moon. Instead, he’s saying we need to get our national and geopolitics together, forget about flying to lunar orbit to look at a space rock, and push forward an ambitious program to go to Mars. Not to visit. To stay there.

Buzz, by the way, will be in Houston next month to sign copies of his new book. But I suggest not accusing him of faking the moon landings. I imagine he can still throw a punch.

Transcript
NEAL CONAN, HOST:

It’s Tuesday and time to read from your comments. Last week we spoke with two doctors on how they discussed imminent death with their patients and patients’ families.

Leila, a doctor, emailed us: Sometimes patients or families project their denial onto us as doctors. Some maybe more focused on honesty and others on optimism, misinterpreting honesty as pessimism, and they may blame us, the physician, for their selective listening. Sometimes all one can do is feel one’s way through the conversation.

We also talked with former NPR correspondent Gwen Thompkins and musician Trombone Shorty about Jazz Fest and the future of New Orleans.

Kris Coleman(ph) from Atlanta sent us this postcard of New Orleans about a gospel tent at Morning Star Missionary Baptist Church: My husband and I were moved and somewhat amused by the throngs of folks carried away by the music. Then the final solo that started her song, modestly building to: Was it so? Was he actually going to try to sing “I Will Always Love You,” Whitney’s song? Oh, this was going to be awful, we thought. But oh, my Lord, that lady brought down the house. She crushed it, lifting that high note over and over, saving souls, escalating the crowd to a virtual frenzy. It was amazing and such a gift. That and crawfish beignets to boot – a heavenly weekend.

On Thursday we spoke with Buzz Aldrin about his new book, “Mission to Mars,” and his hope for Americans to continue to lead in space exploration.

Nate Farrington in Syracuse wrote: I question the purpose behind this grand idea for several reasons. First, we can’t even seem to treat the planet we currently inhabit well enough. What gives us the right to take the domineering culture anywhere else? To what end and for what purpose? Second, we can’t treat one another very well. There are too many examples to count. But when situations like Cleveland, Ohio and the Boston bombing stop, I’ll be more happy to hear about space exploration.

Third, I work in an inner city teaching children in an after-school program. We can’t even get enough money to hire staff, provide quality food and offer activities. Where does the money for the Mars mission come from? I just don’t see the need for this now or, quite frankly, ever.

Jeremiah Stilson(ph) wrote with another view: Why go into space? The reason is to instill wonder and excitement in the minds of citizens everywhere. If you’re going to question the value of going to Mars, then question the value of every other endeavor on Earth: sports, entertainment, et cetera. What’s the point of any of it? What about science? What about the amazement of setting foot on another planet in our solar system? Doesn’t that hold any value? At our core we are exploratory, curious and extremely wondering animals. To deny that sense of curiosity and wonder just because there’s no tangible value seems wrong.

If you have a correction, comment or question for us, the best way to reach us is by email. The address is talk@npr.org. Please, let us know where you’re writing from and give us some help on how to pronounce your name. And if you’re on Twitter, you can follow us there, @totn. And speaking of astronauts, here’s a cut of Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield covering David Bowie’s “Space Oddity” from orbit. Here he is aboard the International Space Station.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “SPACE ODDITY”)

CHRIS HADFIELD: (Singing) Ground control to Major Tom, the time is near. There’s not too long. Can you hear me, Major Tom? Can you hear me, Major Tom? Can you hear me, Major Tom? Can you – here am I floating in my tin can, a last glimpse of the world. Planet Earth is blue and there’s nothing left to do.

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Aldrin will sign copies of his new book, “Mission to Mars: My Vision for Space Exploration,” along with co-author Leonard David, according to museum staff. The signing event at the Balboa Park venue is scheduled to start at 5 p.m.

Aldrin, 83, was one of the first men to walk on the moon in the Apollo 11 mission. The other was Neil Armstrong, who died at the age of 82 in San Diego from complications of heart bypass surgery last August.

A New Jersey native, Aldrin was a fighter pilot in the U.S. Air Force before becoming an astronaut.

“Mission to Mars” is at least the sixth nonfiction book on space exploration co-authored by Aldrin since 1973. He also co-authored two science fiction novels.

Read more: http://fox5sandiego.com/2013/05/22/astronaut-buzz-aldrin-in-san-diego-for-book-signing/#ixzz2U2JacO98

Buzz Aldrin is touring the United States on behalf of his book, “Mission to Mars.” He’s visiting Montclair, his hometown, in less than three weeks, on Sunday, June 2. In collaboration with Watchung Booksellers, Buzz will be in the Montclair Public Library, 60 South Fullerton Ave., to sign copies of his book, which envisions the United States in the forefront of establishing a manned colony on Mars.

More than four decades after the moon landing, our municipal and scholastic officials can guide public forums to name a public institution or a locale after Buzz Aldrin.

Are influential people pondering whether to name a school after Buzz Aldrin, or to name a planetarium inside a school after Buzz Aldrin? To resolve a potential debate, name a school and a planetarium after Buzz Aldrin.

In his middle grades, Buzz Aldrin attended Mount Hebron School. In the 21st century, Mount Hebron’s magnet theme is science and technology, engineering and mathematics. These are academic virtues personified by Buzz Aldrin.

Two of Montclair’s public schools, and the annex for Montclair High School, are already named in honor of noteworthy residents: Bradford, George Inness, Bullock, and Rand (or rather, Renaissance at Rand). Mount Hebron Middle School is named for a biblical site, not a person or neighborhood.

Montclair is Buzz Aldrin’s hometown, a place where he grew up and developed the motivations to become one of the first two humans to land on the moon in 1969. We’re in the year 2013, the year when Montclair should honor Buzz Aldrin.

Buzz Aldrin earned his place in the history books nearly 44 years ago by landing on the Moon with Neil Armstrong, becoming the first men to set foot on our nearest celestial neighbor. Today, though, he seems better known as a minor celebrity in pop culture, lending his name to advertising efforts like the space tourism contest by deodorant company Axe, dabbling in writing science fiction, or appearing on the reality TV show Dancing with the Stars. That assessment, however, leaves out the fact that Aldrin is an expert in spaceflight beyond his astronaut experience—he earned a doctorate from MIT studying orbital mechanics before becoming an astronaut—and has been a staunch advocate for renewed space exploration and space commercialization for years.

It’s that Aldrin—the spaceflight expert and advocate—that authors Mission to Mars with the assistance of veteran space jouralist Leonard David. The title of the book is a bit misleading: one might think that he is advocating an all-out push to Mars, with no intermediate stops, as other space advocates, like Robert Zubrin, have called for. While Aldrin calls for an “American-led, permanent human presence on Mars by 2035,” he sees achieving that goal through a stepping-stone process of missions that build up experience and capabilities, what he calls the Unified Space Vision.

Much of the book traces Aldrin’s vision of sending humans to Mars. He sees great promise for commercial spaceflight sending space tourists (or, as he calls then, “global space explorers”) on suborbital and orbital flights, lowering the cost of space access but also fostering greater public support for spaceflight. “Public space travel by private citizens or nonprofessionals is critical as it makes space feel more familiar,” he writes. “That appreciation, I feel, can shed today’s elitist nature of going into space.”

For the Moon, Aldrin is concerned about the development of a new race to return humans there, and says a better approach is to develop an international consortium, modeled after the original Intelsat a half-century ago, to develop a lunar outpost and other infrastructure to support scientific studies and commercial development there. He also endorses human missions to near Earth asteroids and comets and, later, to the moons of Mars, both to build up experience for those eventual human Martian landings as well as in their own right.

Although the book is focused primarily on the technical issues of sending humans to Mars, Aldrin does offer some personal reflections. The first chapter of his book interleaves his own story of becoming an astronaut and going to the Moon with his desire to restart a new era of space exploration. In the chapter about the Moon, he recalls his Apollo 11 experience, and addresses a sore point for some: that most of the pictures from that historic moonwalk feature Aldrin, not Armstrong. “I’m not trying to ease out of any public relations perspective, but we were never briefed on how important the PR pictures would be,” he explains. And he offers this as well: “Once I set foot on the moon, I checked my balance and peed in my space suit’s urine collector.” Okay, then.

For those who have been paying attention to Aldrin’s comments at various space conferences and other events, there’s little new here technically in Mission to Mars. The Unified Space Vision concept, for example, is something Aldrin has been promoting for several years; the Mars “cycler” spacecraft concept, featuring spacecraft in orbits that swing them by Earth and Mars on a regular basis, is much older.

The emphasis of the book is very much on the “how” of space exploration, with chapters often profiling a grab bag of different technologies or mission concepts. There is far less in the book, though, on “why” humans should go to Mars, beyond a desire to maintain US leadership in space. The book makes little mention of the costs of these mission concepts as well, a key criterion in an era of constrained budgets.

In the book, Aldrin argues that the next US President—elected in 2016—should make a “bold statement” on the 50th anniversary of Apollo 11 in July 2019 by setting of a goal of “commencing American permanence on the planet Mars” within 20 years. (How he and others will convince that future president to endorse that goal is not discussed, although in a speech earlier this month at the Humans to Mars Summit in Washington, he said that if that president declined to make that goal, “it would be a wonderful opportunity for that person trying to unseat the incumbent by saying, ‘I’m going to make that commitment early in my term.’”) That unaddressed challenge may be far more difficult that any technical obstacle towards achieving the goal of Mission to Mars, and it’s not something even Aldrin’s celebrity can easily overcome.

Jeff Foust (jeff@thespacereview.com) is the editor and publisher of The Space Review. He also operates the Spacetoday.net web site and the Space Politics and NewSpace Journal weblogs. Views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author alone, and do not represent the official positions of any organization or company, including the Futron Corporation, the author’s employer.

A member of the Apollo 11 mission in 1969, Buzz Aldrin was the second man to walk on the moon. In the years since, he has become an advocate for space exploration and technology, calling for renewed U.S. investment in the space program. In Mission to Mars: My Vision for Space Exploration, Aldrin lays out a detailed, multi-stage plan for journeying to the red planet that would culminate in the first permanent human settlement beyond the Earth.

It’s been more than four decades since you landed on the moon. What’s your assessment of the U.S. space program since then?

The United States has had periods of ambition, but it has not financed them appropriately. Interest waned after the first Apollo landing on the moon. There was the conflict in Vietnam that attracted attention and financing and U.S. government support, and then a general disinterest by the American people in American leadership and technology. Our standing in education in the world, in science, technology, engineering and math, began to go up because of Apollo and then back down again. I’m trying to fix a lot of that.

The space shuttle has been the most high-profile program in the years since Apollo. Do you think it was a success?

It killed two crews, it was way over budget, and it hasn’t really accomplished what it set out to do. Of course we pioneered international cooperation and zero gravity experiments and we gained medical knowledge about long-term habitation in space. But the experiments were disappointing for the results of a national laboratory. We had to rely on Russian contributions to build the space station. And now the United States is financing the Russian space program in order to keep our people, in America, at our $100 billion space station, because we had to retire the shuttle.

NASA ended the space shuttle program in 2011. Do you think that was premature?

No, the program needed cancelling, but NASA and the U.S. had seven years between the beginning of 2004 and the end of 2010 to come up with a replacement for the shuttle, which it failed to do.

You’ve worried about the U.S. falling behind. Do you see other government space agencies doing better work? The Russians, for example, or the European Space Agency?

Well, they’re not well-financed either. But they continue to be able to transport crews to the $100 billion International Space Station. And the Chinese have advanced, with Russian assistance, to potentially surpass the United States.

During the Apollo program we were in a so-called “space race” with the Soviet Union. Do you think that it’s important for the U.S. to lead the world in space exploration, or should it be more of a partnership between nations?

Absolutely the United States should lead in space, for the survival of the United States. It’s inspiring for the next generation. If we lose leadership, then we’ll be using Chinese capability to inspire Americans.

You were critical of President Bush and NASA’s proposal to return to the moon, but the moon does play a role in your conception of a mission to Mars. Can you explain?

To send humans back to the moon would not be advancing. It would be more than 50 years after the first moon landing when we got there, and we’d probably be welcomed by the Chinese. But we should return to the moon without astronauts and build, with robots, an international lunar base, so that we know how to build a base on Mars robotically.

What would the moon base look like?

I think it should be an early version of a habitation module for a U.S. interplanetary spacecraft. We would put it there for testing temperature control, the temperature changes with 14 days of sunlight and 14 days of darkness on the moon, radiation protection—that’s absolutely necessary for venturing beyond the earth’s magnetic field.

After we build the moon base, you believe we should use what we learned and send humans to Mars’ moon, Phobos, to build a base on Mars.

That would be my preference. We’ve learned, with the robots Spirit and Opportunity on the surface of Mars, that you can’t control them adequately from the Earth. What we’ve done in five years on Mars could be done in one week—that’s a significant advance—if we had human intelligence in orbit around Mars. It’s much, much easier to send people there for a year and a half and then bring them back, before sending them back later to permanently land on Mars.

So to return to Earth, it’s easier to launch off Phobos than Mars, because Phobos is a smaller body with less gravity?

Yes. We need to build the base on Mars from orbit before sending people to the surface. And they will be permanent settlers and not return to earth, like the Pilgrims on the Mayflower left Europe.

You think we can actually get humans to live out their lives on Mars?

Absolutely.

How can people be persuaded to do that? You’d be asking them to sacrifice a lot. It’s a big step.

It wouldn’t be a problem, getting volunteers, fully capable people, to assume that mission for the rest of their lives. They will realize that they will go down in history. The pilgrims were a big step, too. Columbus was a big step. Magellan was a big step.

Why should humans colonize another planet?

There may be diseases, there may be nuclear conflict or there may be an impact by a very large asteroid that endangers the human race. Stephen Hawking says we have about 200 years. And I said to him, I think we could make it to another planet in less than 50 years.

Read more: Smithsonian.com Follow us: @SmithsonianMag on Twitter

That’s it. “Finish school.” And then he was signing the next book, and continued signing for probably two more hours judging by the size of the crowd. Excellent advice for the youth of today. My son — who in my mind has barely started school — took it to heart that he should spend years in school, study hard and finish with a PhD like Buzz. But like Benjamin Braddock contemplating the true meaning of “plastics,” we swirled Buzz’s simple declarative in our minds searching for some greater cosmic meaning.

“Finish school.” Could he have meant to just finish the fourth grade now and then join up with NASA’s secret 12-and-under astronautics program this summer? Maybe Buzz knows of the government protocol to test the next generation of spaceships on children, rather than those precious endangered chimpanzees (damn you, Jane Goodall!). Besides, everyone knows that videogame-raised kids have better hand-eye coordination than Air Force test pilots, they enjoy fitting into small compartments and they’re excited about using high-suction toilets in space. Buzz, after all, didn’t say “stay” in school. Merely to finish it. Just look: He didn’t even dot his “i” in “Aldrin” when he signed our book. Sure, he “claims” to have gone to MIT, but maybe he never made it to fifth grade?

But more cryptically, what if we heard him wrong? Perhaps instead of “finish school” he had actually said “Finnish School.” Aha! Does Buzz know something we don’t know about the future of human space exploration? Is he so disillusioned with the United States’ meandering vision (an underlying theme of his book) that he has more confidence in Finland’s burgeoning space program? If Helsinki is the next Cape Canaveral, should my son be going to a Finnish language immersion school to prepare himself for years of pickled herring in space?

Or was it shorthand for the famous Finnish School of Watchmaking (or Kelloseppäkoulu, as it’s known locally in Tapiola), which is giving Switzerland a run for its money in the watchmaking business? Everyone knows that space missions rely on precise time keeping, so maybe learning a little watchmaking is a good skill to have a million miles from earth when your Timex stops ticking. And if Einstein’s right about the whole space-time continuum thing, while all the other astronauts spend years in school studying space, maybe a superior knowledge of time is really the way to go. At 83, Buzz looks his age, but what if he’s got a spry 39-year-old twin still out in space, who’s relying on a Finnish-made pocket watch?

Then again “Finnish school” could be a sly reference to Iron Sky, the brilliant Finnish movie that speculated that Nazis were living on the dark side of the Moon. Everyone assumed the movie was fiction, but Buzz has been there. If there were Nazis on the moon, he’d be the one to know it. Maybe the devious Finns actually made a documentary, and Buzz’s enigmatic phrase was a clue to the real truth about Nazis on the moon, and their impending invasion of earth. Buzz had several burly handlers around him — maybe this was a desparate cry for help, and we let him down?

One other possible interpretation was that we misheard “finish school” and he actually said “finishing school.” Buzz’s book is, after all, primarily about his long-term vision to send astronauts to Mars. But again, maybe he knows more than he’s comfortable saying in public. What if Buzz somehow knows the Martians are sticklers for manners? If my son wants to be among the first humans to visit, he will need to be exceptionally polite and know which spoon to use for soup, lest he accidentally set off an interplanetary war. If nothing else, you never know when you’re going to get invited to a state dinner at the White House. Good manners can’t hurt, even in space.

So like all good heroes, Buzz Aldrin has inspired us in ways that even he probably could not have predicted. My son now has a personal connection to one of the last men who ever covered the Earth with his thumb, and felt the gentle tug of the moon’s gravity on his boots. Even if he has to learn Finnish and start eating reindeer steak and lingonberries, those are the sacrifices he and the next generation of Mars-bound astronauts may have to make.

Believe it or not, my mother’s maiden name was Moon. Her family came from Britain, and she suffered terribly from depression. Like my grandfather and cousins on her side of the family, she took her own life. It happened in 1968—a year before the Apollo 11 launch. It was tough, but I blocked it out by focusing on all the years she supported me—as did my father, who was an aviation pioneer and had known Orville Wright.

After Apollo 11 lifted off in Florida [on July 16, 1969], the three of us—me, Neil Armstrong and Mike Collins—traveled in space for three days to reach the moon’s orbit.

The next day, Neil and I climbed into the lunar module and detached from [command module] Columbia to begin our descent to the moon. We had to stand in the craft—the design didn’t allow for seats. Our feet were held down on the floor by elastic cords to keep us from floating around.

Landing on the moon—with all of the risks—sounds scary. But our training prepared us by concentrating on failures and solving big problems under extreme pressure.

Once we touched down at the Sea of Tranquillity [on July 20], the Eagle was our home for the next 21½ hours. When I was a kid, my first airplane ride was in a propeller aircraft painted to look like an eagle and piloted by my father. The lunar module was named Eagle—and an eagle insignia was on our arm patch—so I felt safe.

On the moon, we had one-sixth of Earth’s gravity, allowing Neil and me to move around easily in the Eagle to put on equipment for our walk. The module’s color scheme wasn’t much—the interior was gray and industrial, and there were lots of labels with white and black text. Some handles were yellow, and there was a yellow guard around our telescope.

We ate freeze-dried packaged food and had a mix that became an orange-grapefruit drink when water was added. There was no coffee. The Columbia orbiting above had hot water, but not the Eagle.

Four hours after we touched down, Neil went out of the craft first to set up a TV camera pointed at Earth and take photos. I followed 20 minutes later. When I stepped onto the moon’s surface, it felt cushiony, not gravelly—thanks to all the dust. There was no crunchy sound under my boot.

The strangest feeling was standing on the surface and looking back home at Earth—where every other human being was except the three of us. One of the most famous pictures from the mission was taken by Neil of my gold helmet visor—with Neil and the Eagle reflected in it. If you look carefully, you’ll see smudges on both legs of my spacesuit.

When Neil had come down the ladder, he had to jump a little to drop to the next rung. His boots left moon dust on the last rung. So when I jumped a little coming down to the pad, I underestimated the leap and my shins brushed the last rung, picking up the dust.

Returning to the Eagle about two hours later, we had a problem. I noticed the engine arm’s circuit breaker on my side had detached. It had to be engaged somehow if the ascent engine was to fire and lift us off the surface.

Houston wanted us to sleep while they learned as much as possible about the breaker problem. But the module was freezing cold, so Neil and I put on our helmets, and I turned the heat full-up. I curled up on the floor, and Neil tried to sleep sitting on top of the asset engine cover. But he told me later that Earth’s bright blue light was shining through the Eagle’s telescope and into his eyes, keeping him awake. Not very homey—but we managed.

When Houston woke us several hours later, they told me what to do to fix the circuit breaker. I engaged it with a felt-tip pen. Since the pen was made of plastic, there wasn’t a risk of encountering electrical voltage when I pushed in the remainder of the disengaged breaker.

Once Houston concluded the problem was fixed, relief replaced concern. I felt we might make it home instead of perishing there. A short time later, Houston gave us the go-ahead: “Apollo 11 at Tranquillity Base, you’re cleared for liftoff.” I responded, “Roger, Houston. We’re No. 1 on the runway.” Those were two absurdities, of course. There was no runway and no one else was behind us. A little space humor.

The Eagle was like home on the moon—only we didn’t have two wives telling us to clean up. We were the chief cooks and bottle-washers. So before we left, we put out the trash, just as we did back home. It’s all still sitting there on the lunar surface waiting for the trash collector.

Aldrin releases a new book today, “Mission to Mars,” in which he argues a future U.S. president should commit by 2019 to sending humans to Mars, and not returning them safely to Earth. It will take a brave leader to suggest something like this, but brave leaders have sparked space exploration before, he says.

His plan centers around something called a Mars Cycler, which Aldrin first conceived of nearly 30 years ago. It would create a “celestial triad of worlds,” hubs for the ebb and flow of passengers, cargo and commerce among Earth, the moon and Mars. The ships would be new designs–he says he’s “incensed” that most current space exploration prototypes look like Apollo–and he doesn’t want them to use solid rocket motors, a “technology that keeps popping up out of the casket.”

“Let’s take a page from commercial airliners and ratchet ourselves up from the disposable Dixie-cup model,” he writes.

The Cycler would need several steps to get off the ground. First, the project would include a practice run on the big island of Hawaii. A habitat module or some other system component would be remotely delivered by some robotic technology, probably controlled by a satellite or via radio link from Houston. Secondary components would have to be air-dropped together, with extreme precision. Then things get real. The first off-planet element would be a control center or habitation module, delivered to the L2 Earth-moon gravity-balancing point. That, in turn, would become a place from which controllers would manage the remote landing of the first moon habitat. Eventually, all this practice would lead to a remotely controlled delivery of the first stages of a Mars base.

“If we persevere on this path, we can reach out some 200 million miles to Mars before 2035–66 years after Neil Armstrong and I flew the quarter-million miles through the blackness of space to touch down onto Tranquillity Base,” Aldrin writes. “There’s a historical milestone in the fact that our Apollo 11 landing on the moon took place a mere 66 years after the Wright Brothers’ first flight.”

I was intrigued, so I decided to ask to him about this. It turned out Buzz was eager to talk. As I quickly realized, conversations with Buzz are not necessarily back-and-forth. When he’s excited about something, he’s going to tell you about it, tangents and all. I wanted to ask if I could yell at the moon with him, but we didn’t get that far before his people pulled him offline for another interview.

PopularScience.com: Why would you want humans to stay on Mars permanently?

Buzz Aldrin: The uniqueness of that has yet to be fully reached. We bring people back. But the purpose of going to Mars is for humans to first begin to occupy, permanently, another planet in the solar system. The astronauts or pilgrims, whatever you might call them, are going to be very historically unique human beings. And the leader of an Earth organization who makes a commitment to history–of humans living on Earth, to begin permanent settlement/occupation of not the moon, but of another planet–this leader will have a legacy for history that will supersede Columbus, Genghis Khan or almost any recognized leader. I guess religiously, that might include Jesus Christ and Mohammed and Abraham and David. They are obviously going to be remembered for their contribution to human history.

This will probably take two decades from commitment, and result in the non-return of humans from the surface of Mars. They would occupy a permanent Mars base, built previously from a moon of Mars, and my favorite selection is the inner moon, Phobos. Over a period of three different visits to the moon Phobos, the Mars base will be assembled remotely, from sequentially-landed large elements, habitats and whatever else, that are to become the permanent base.

How would the Mars Cycler get people to Mars?


Aldrin: 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. But it resulted in the Aldrin Cycler, which was published in ‘86. It included cycling spacecraft between Earth and Mars, back and forth. It was really the first major disclosure of a new strategy of transportation for permanent transportation economics, of delivering human beings from the Earth to Mars.

The cycler consists of two mated together, side-by-side connected, interplanetary spacecraft. It’s the very basic component of future projections by my USV, unified space vision, which is my personal-experience replacement for President Bush’s vision for space exploration.

I tried to change the name of the book, but it was just too late to add an “s,” so it would be “Missions to Mars,” not “Mission.” My plan for the future is unique in a sense, because it implies human permanence at Mars. Humans transported to the surface of Mars by cycling spacecraft. It’s kind of complex, but every other synodic period, a cycler delivers to Mars. That means you would need two cyclers, one for the first, third, fifth, ninth odd number of 26-month opportunities, and the other cycler, for 2, 4, 6 even-numbered synodic periods. It’s a major improvement on the Aldrin Cycler, that was first discovered/invented/worked out, but not patented, in 1985.

What’s your Unified Space Vision?

Aldrin: It unifies five elements of space policy: 1) exploration; 2) science; 3) development; 4) commercial; and 5) security. Many, many people have verified that that is national space policy, those five items. We unite those five elements strategically by comparing and integrating our five elements of space policy with every other country internationally. Like ESA, JAXA, China, India, Germany–all of those space policies of other internationals are essential to be integrated into my unified space vision, because of the moon. At the moon, the U.S., in my opinion, needs absolutely to lead an international lunar base. This discourages commercial human landings on the moon by government subsidy. Let’s not have the taxpayers paying for a big rocket, a lunar landing, so that commercial human beings from the U.S. can dig up and mine and occupy the international lunar base.

In the book you mention that your nickname at NASA was “Dr. Rendezvous,” because your MIT doctoral thesis was about two piloted aircraft meeting in space. Is that why are you interested in this cycler concept?

Aldrin: It’s ironic. My selection as an astronaut was unique because I had not been trained as a test pilot. So my application, along with Ed White, my very close friend who graduated West Point and was killed in the Apollo [1] fire, he and I applied in 1962 for the second group. Ed was selected, I was not. I made it in the 1963 selection of astronauts, because of the change of not requiring test pilot training, which I had intentionally avoided. But I had written my thesis on space rendezvous at MIT, and was very motivated for the space future, in the Air Force or anywhere else.

That’s some background as to why you are interviewing me after two autobiographies. In 1973, I wrote “Return to Earth,” which was made into a movie in 1976. But it dealt only with mental health issues and depression. It did not include alcoholism recovery, and I now have 34 years of sobriety from alcohol. The most recent autobiography, “Magnificent Desolation,” described my recovery from alcoholism.

What do you think of space tourist Dennis Tito’s plan to swing around Mars and back? Is this how you envision a future Mars Cycler working?

Aldrin: Sort of. It has the essence of a gravitational swingby of Mars, to bring the spacecraft back in as short a time as possible. Those times occur in 2016 and 2018 but not again until 2031. We probably can’t make 2016, but we can make 2018. That would bring the spacecraft back, if successful, just prior to the 50th anniversary of the first lunar landing.

Does the cycler plan borrow a page from modern airlines?

Aldrin: Absolutely. Airlines, private industry, followed the government system of airplanes to deliver the mail. The government system to deliver the mail from one city to another, and then reuse the airplane. It led obviously to transporting not just mail, or cargo, but the private delivery of human beings between city and city and back.

Now there is the commercial potential of transportation of human beings from the surface of the Earth, to Earth orbit and potentially to swing by the moon, and back to Earth. Or to swing by Mars and return to Earth, and be the delivery system of us, or international human beings, from Earth to Mars. Then we’re not expending the vast resources that would be needed to bring people back from Mars.

How should we get started? What’s the most important aspect?

Aldrin: The first element, before the retirement of space shuttle, was supposed to be to deliver a test bed to the space station. Long-duration life support systems, separate from the station but connected. The second element would be a prototype of an interplanetary habitation module, delivered to the space station, which could become a safe haven for astronauts at the station to abandon a disabled space station, separate in this hab module, and be returned to Earth. The third, fourth and fifth iteration is further testing of the interplanetary space vehicle, referred to in my book, in low-Earth orbit, to the moon, in cycling orbits, to L2 and L1, and to lunar surface as the first element of the international lunar base. That would be to test radiation, systems, etc to support other nations’ human beings on the surface of the moon.

July 2019 would be the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 landing. It would be the ideal time, in my estimation, for the president elected in 2016 and 2020, from whichever party, to gain the legacy of the two-decade commitment to permanence of human beings on the planet Mars. That is the essence of Buzz Aldrin’s Unified Space Vision. It’s a very unique and beautiful opportunity for U.S. leadership.

Famed astronaut, Buzz Aldrin, could not have entered the IMAX Theater at The Cradle of Aviation more appropriately this past Saturday, May 11th. Dr. Aldrin greeted his audience with a smile and a wave as we greeted him back with a standing ovation, applause, and Frank Sinatra’s “Fly Me to the Moon” playing in the background. As soon as he took his seat, the crowd grew silent, eagerly awaiting words from the intelligent and prestigious second man to walk on the moon.

According to moderator Dick Dunn, who lead the discussion, Dr. Aldrin has been the “most frequent Apollo astronaut at the museum.” Dick Dunn briefly told the audience about Dr. Aldrin’s famous book, Mission to Mars: My Vision for Space Exploration, before starting the interview to the completely sold out audience. “This is not just a book,” Dunn explained. “Mission to Mars is the preliminary plan to go to Mars!”

Dick Dunn’s first question to Buzz Aldrin was about the current state of our nation’s space program. Dr. Aldrin explained his many attempts to bring forth ideas and attempts for exploration to President Obama, as well as past presidents, stating that the economy has not allowed us to move forward quite yet. “After The Challenger accident, we took a yearlong break,” Buzz explained that this tragedy was one reason for the temporary pause in our country’s space exploration program. He also explained that his ultimate goal is a “unified space vision,” which he suggested to President Obama in 2009. This vision includes five essential elements: exploration, science, development, commercial, and security.

Buzz broke up his lecture with a bit of comedy when he held up a t-shirt that read, “I’m the Real Buzz” in reference to the use of his name in the Disney/Pixar Toy Story movies. The audience laughed and applauded, acknowledging that there wouldn’t be anyone more deserving to own that article of clothing.

Moderator Dunn continued with several more questions, including how our public education system impacts the current space program. “There could be many young future astronauts in this audience today,” Dunn stated before handing over the conversation to Dr. Aldrin.

“Scores have gone down in certain subjects in education…” Dr. Aldrin explained the importance of the “S.T.E.M.” program in our schools. “We think of this as ‘education for geeks,’ but now we are adding one more letter to it: ‘A’ for Arts.” “S.T.E.A.M.” stands for “Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics,” which are the major areas that we must focus on in our education system in order to prepare students for work in fields such as space exploration in addition to many other careers.

As a teacher, and in particular a music teacher, I was elated to hear Dr. Aldrin speak about the importance of adding the arts into our teaching priorities, in addition to his support for our public education system. There were many students of all ages sitting in the audience on Saturday and I think they would agree that Dr. Aldrin shed a light of hope onto anyone doubting the ability to follow their career dreams due to the current state of the economy.

Dr. Aldrin shared his expertise, experience and philosophies while answering several more questions. Dr. Aldrin spoke about using the speed of light to measure distances from Earth to Mars, as well as his own personal experience on the moon. “The words I used to describe it were ‘magnificent desolation,’” Buzz explained to the audience. He also explained how rewarded our nation would feel upon finally sending humans to Mars: “If we had human intelligence in orbit around Mars, the work done by the Mars Rovers could have been accomplished in a week’s time,” Dr. Aldrin explains that humans are the missing link to transmitting messages in a timely fashion from Mars to Earth.

After the discussion, hundreds of fans lined up outside of The Cradle of Aviation Museum entrance to have Buzz Aldrin sign their copies of his books, Mission to Mars and Look to the Stars. Dr. Aldrin fittingly autographed his novels in front of the museum’s lunar module, which was built in Long Island’s very own Grumman building in Hicksville.

In addition to frequent visits by Buzz Aldrin, The Cradle of Aviation Museum hosts a wide variety of events in addition to its daily museum hours and IMAX showings. Saturday, June 15th, the museum will host “Eternal Con: Long Island’s Pop Culture Expo Comic Con.” In addition, the museum offers a variety of educational programs such as holiday/summer camps, the Junior Jet Club for aviators between the ages of 2 and 6, catered events and birthday parties.

The Cradle of Aviation Museum is located on Charles Lindbergh Boulevard in Garden City, NY (follow the ramp off of Meadowbrook Parkway exit M4).

For more details, call 516-572-4111 or visit their website at http://cradleofaviation.org or visit them on Facebook at http://facebook.com/thecradleofaviation.

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