Apollo Astronauts: We Should Go to Mars

(CBS/ AP)  The astronauts who first landed on the moon aren't dwelling on their small lunar steps. Instead, two of them on Sunday urged mankind to take a giant leap to Mars.

In one of their few joint public appearances, the crew of Apollo 11 spoke on the eve of the 40th anniversary of man's first landing on the moon, but didn't get soggy with nostalgia. They instead spoke about the future and the more distant past.

On Monday, the three astronauts will get another chance to make the pitch for a Mars trip, this time to someone with a little more sway: President Barack Obama.

Sunday night, a packed crowd at the Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum - 7,000 people applied in a lottery for 485 seats - didn't get the intimate details of the Eagle's landing on the moon with little fuel left, or what the moon looked like, or what it felt like to be there.

They got second man on the moon Buzz Aldrin's pitch for Mars. He said the best way to honor the Apollo astronauts "is to follow in our footsteps; to boldly go again on a new mission of exploration."

First man on the moon Neil Armstrong only discussed Apollo 11 for about 11 seconds. He gave a professorial lecture titled "Goddard, governance and geophysics," looking at the inventions and discoveries that led to his historic "small step for a man" on July 20, 1969.

Apollo 11 command module pilot Michael Collins, who circled the moon alone while Armstrong and Aldrin walked on it, said the moon was not interesting, but Mars is.

"Sometimes I think I flew to the wrong place. Mars was always my favorite as a kid and it still is today," Collins said. "I'd like to see Mars become the focus, just as John F. Kennedy focused on the moon."

A slim majority of Americans believe the United States should send astronauts to Mars despite the current economic crisis, a newly-released CBS News poll finds.

Fifty-one percent of those surveyed back the journey to Mars. Forty-three percent opposed it. In 2004, 48 percent said the U.S. should sent astronauts to Mars, while in 1999 that figure was 58 percent.

As the country marks the 40th anniversary of the first moon landing, meanwhile, there is widespread agreement that landing men on the moon was worthwhile. Seventy-one percent said it was worth the time, effort and money that went into the endeavor, while 24 percent said it was not.

[sincity_q]

America is hurt and bleeding. We've been asked to let go of our industrial base and world leadership in the name of globalism. We've been stripped of our national as well as our individual self esteem so that others can feel better about less.

We need a dedicated effort to go to Mars, even if not for the pure scientific value. We desperately need to give Americans something to cheer about in America.

Unfortunately, we will not find the visionary leadership for such a bold venture in Obama, nor would we have found it in either McCain or Bush. Today's crop of 'leaders' (loosely) are tools of the globalist agenda where national pride is ignored in favor of a humanist plan of horrid mediocrity.

We'll be lucky if they don't shut down the space program entirely and spend the money building wooden boats.

[palmflood]

How do you know that we don't have the visionary leadership in Obama for this and other necessary actions? Who is paid obscene amounts of money to speak over him, for example, on national airwaves during his live inaugural address, and on every miserable weekday since, so that people like you can never have hope in what the majority wants for this country? You are a victim of lies, sir. I can tell you that mediocrity will not be the hallmark of this presidency because Obama was elected specifically to supersede mediocrity, and the famous obstructors will be swept away into the obscurity and sad isolation from which they came. I say Fairness in information and the O'Neill plan for the future of freedom.

[palmflood]

Fairness legislation would help tone down the extremist "socialism" charges being leveled against Americans by a few people who drink the Limbaugh/Hannity/Levin kookaid, the kind which threaten the security of the United States. The simple ability to answer these broadcasters on the spot was removed by FCC in 1987, and pernicious voices of confusion and fear rise as a result.

As for the space topic, American interests would be well-served by pursuing Gerard K. O'Neill's "Alternative Plan for U.S. National Space Program". The plan capitalizes on Apollo successes by making the moon work for us. Lunar regolith contains the constituent building materials perfect for construction of sunsats to supply permanent baseload energy to the earth, shielded habitats the size of small towns for workers and others, and large ships of exploration with 1-g gravity by rotation to take us to Mars and elsewhere. NASA and DOE favorably reviewed these things in the 1970s and 1990s, and the Pentagon's National Security Space Office found benefits in 2007 for security as well in the form of supplying steerable energy to forward bases and in the possible mitigation of energy wars due to dwindling resources on the ground. Such a broad strategy now can align important national decisions in space, energy, security, commerce, environment, and education. The activity can expand the economy as well as humanity's niche in the solar system. The plan can best be pursued perhaps as a multinational effort with the United States in the lead.

[didserve]

So that is the people cbs news polled to see if Americans want to go to Mars!

All you have to do is stand around a Republican water cooler and you can feel just like you went to Mars! Save the Trip!

[drputt45]

Can we build a space ship big enough to carry all the politicians to Mars, the Moon, Venus (perverts only), or anywhere else? Then, maybe a few honest people can figure out how to run our world on a middle class budget that benefits everyone.

When we vote them out, we really vote them out. They are gone and we can use those high dollar retirements they voted for themselves and take care of the real problems. To the Moon!

[grabandgo]

We can't take care of our own country or earth, for what reason do we need to go to mars other than justify nasa's existance.

[longtree-2009]

what have we, or the world, gained from space exploration in the last some 40 years. billions have been spent but what are the tangible results? sure, there has been a race into space by nation states but for what? China rules our economy, all of our products on store shelves seem to be made in China. we haven't won a war since ww2 but we landed on the moon. if we populate another planet what will keep us from ruining it like we have this one? what will keep us from replicating the social, economic, political problems we have on mother earth?

[rf35]

The only reason to return to the moon is to use it as a practice run for a Mars mission. It is better to get the bugs out of the system in a relatively close trip than to get half-way to Mars and discaver some major design flaw (remember, "lowest bidder" wins the contracts). Unless you want to have America's manned space flight program put on hold or ten years or so.

[tmittelstaed]

It is very unfortunate to read these calls to go to Mars from people who should know better. Yes, we need to go there - but we need to go there and STAY there - not go there just to get a few rocks and have a photo-op.

Our last manned trip to the moon was so long ago that almost 1/3 of the people in the US today wern't even born then. If we hadn't given up on it, we would have a colony on the Moon today. If we had a colony today then 50 years from now it would be self-sustaining. And in another 100 years we would be manufacturing steel girders and construction materials on the Moon and using solar powered mass-drivers to send them to Earth orbit and other planet's orbit (like Mars and Venus) to build orbital platforms.

[stryker54]

Hey ibsteve2u, guess you don't realize that all americans wanted to see us achieve going to the moon before the ruskie's and another point. Nixon was in office at that time.
I do think it is about time for all you liberals thinking dems has the answers. It's time the american people start working together to make this world a better place not the repubs or debs have done a very good job over the past 40 years. You need to understand its not just the POTUS it also is congress and the senate that has destroyed this country. Just so happens to be, the american people were fooled big time with big O. What a bunch of sheep.

[paataa]

A important message to the red dragon bloodlines(illuminati) i understand your role on planet earth congratulations on creating Good And Evil but you surely know by now accention is close 21-03-2013 this planet will not exist in its current form and a message to the orion league or empire i will choose to reincarnate into your dimension next i will be ciaos in your worlds i am a creator god aware of my 3rd dimensional experience i choose to be your worst nightmare next.