If you go to MARS, stay there !

In an interview with AFP, moonwalker Buzz Aldrin stated that the first astronauts sent to Mars should be prepared to spend the rest of their lives there, in the same way that European pioneers headed to America knowing they would not return home.

“With what appears to be vast reserves of frozen water, Mars is nearer terrestrial conditions, much better than the Moon and any other place,”.
“It is easier to subsist, to provide the support needed for people there than on the Moon.” (Aldrin)
It took Aldrin, Neil Armstrong and Michael Collins eight days to go to the Moon — 380,000 kilometres (238,000 miles) from Earth — and return in July 1969, aboard Apollo 11. The distance between the Red Planet and Earth varies between 55 million (34 million miles) and more than 400 million kms (250 million miles) so a round trip to Mars would take around a year and a half.

“That’s why you [should] send people there permanently,” said Aldrin. “If we are not willing to do that, then I don’t think we should just go once and have the expense of doing that and then stop.”

“They need to go there more with the psychology of knowing that you are a pioneering settler and you don’t look forward to go back home again after a couple a years,” he said.

“At age 30, they are given an opportunity. If they accept, then we train them, at age 35, we send them. At age 65, who knows what advances have taken place. They can retire there, or maybe we can bring them back.”

NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) are sketching tentative plans for a manned mission to Mars that would take place around 2030 or 2040.

via: physorg

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