Aldrin to America: Let's Make it to Mars

Today, on the 40th anniversary of the first moon walk, President Obama welcomed the crew of Apollo 11 to the White House to talk about the future of space flight.

A new CBS News poll says a majority of Americans -- 51 percent -- believe the U.S. should send a mission to Mars.

But CBS News correspondent Bob Orr reports from Washington that a Mars landing might be a ways off.

Today's celebration is tempered by disappointment that America, in the four decades since the Apollo 11 mission, has not probed deeper into the unknown. Buzz Aldrin, who was the second man to step onto the moon, wants America to be first on Mars.

"To me, exploration is going to some place you haven't been before," Aldrin said.

Gene Cernan, who was the last man to walk on the moon in 1972, says the spirit of Apollo has been lost.

"I really believed that we'd be back to the moon by the end of that decade and on our way to Mars by the turn of Twentieth Century," Cernan said.

The achievements have been less grandiose. The shuttle program, which today featured a little-noted space walk outside the International Space Station, is set to end next year. While the President has called for a return to the moon by 2020, funding is already being cut.

But budget pressures are nothing new. Even President Kennedy bemoaned the expense of racing Russia to the moon.

"Everything that we do ought to really be tied into getting onto the moon ahead of the Russians," President Kennedy said in 1962. "Otherwise we shouldn't be spending this kind of money because I'm not that interested in space."

For America, Apollo 11 was the payoff. Aldrin says it should have been the beginning.

"We lit the engine and we opened the door to the future of exploration," Aldrin said.

Forty years later, that future seems less clear than it was that July night in 1969.

[tlwalker4]

I am not anti-science or a Luddite. I well remember the Kennedy years, and all things seemed hopeful and new. The thought of landing someone on the moon was exciting.

But that was a different time. Today, we simply do not have the money to spend on space exploration just for the sake of exploration. Just to say, "Look what we did!" I can understand the position of the astronauts--this was, after all, what they were trained to do, and for most of them, probably, their trips into space were the pinnacle of their accomplishments. I suspect nothing they have done since has ever quite measured up.

This country throws away enough money on enough projects that are either worthless or could be called nice-to-have-if-you-have-oodles- of-extra-money-to-throw-around. Space exploration probably fits into the latter category.

The exception is that we should continue working on military aspects of space. Someone has said that whoever controls space militarily will rule. We cannot let countries like Russia and China gain the upper hand there. Love and peace and cooperation are things most of us would support--however, there are others out there who do not. The do not think like the liberal, educated, idealistic Western person, and they never will. We must continually be on guard against these entities.

But spending billions upon billions of dollars just to have someone set foot on Mars? A real waste of money. So, I'm opposed.

Whatever we spend on space should have a direct military application.

[Samuel-HiLL]

As long as there are starving and homeless people in the world, we shouldn't spend another dime on space exploration.

Why do we need to send people to Mars anyway? We've sent our probes, we know there's nothing useful there. Risking lives and spending billions of dollars just to leave footprints, and make another "small step/giant leap" statement isn't worth it.

[rf35]

I agree that we should go to Mars, but going just for the sake of saying "America went there first" is not a good reason. When we go, it should be with a purpose. The upcoming lunar missions should be planned with the future Mars mission in mind. Whether used to perfect the equipment or to build a base that can be a staging area for a voyage to Mars, sending Americans back to the moon is an important firts step that should not be dismissed simply because it's been done before and Mars hasn't. If America hadn't spent the last 4 decades since Apollo stuck in LEO, we could have sent manned vehicles to Mars by now.