Life on Mars: A chat with Buzz Aldrin

AP/Press Association Images

Last week, we spoke with Buzz Aldrin about colonising Mars for a feature that will appear in the next issue of Delayed Gratification. As a little preview, here are some of our favourite things we’ve learnt about the second man on the Moon…

He thinks there’s big money in colonising Mars.
“What’s on the other side of Mars is an asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter which has a far greater significance for mineral support activity than the near-Earth objects. Mars could very well be a staging location for the resources of the asteroid belt.”

He thinks the first astronauts that go to Mars should stay there, because it’s cost-effective.
“They’re not really that useful for future missions. While they were on Mars, we’ve heard all we can from them. They can write books and memoirs and go down in history, but as far as being helpful to the investment that we have made in them, that is best carried out by them remaining on Mars.”

He thinks it would be much more comfortable to spend time on Mars than on the Moon.
“The temperatures are more acceptable.”

He is wary of the Mars One project, which aims to send four people on a one-way trip to Mars and make a reality TV show out of their lives.
“If their difficulties or their failures result in a delay of sending a mission that’s more capable and more permanently prepared for eventualities than their rather sparse systems that support getting there in a big hurry, they may threaten indeed the entire effort of humanity to establish a growing outpost of humanity on another planet.”

For more from Buzz, get your hands on a copy of issue #15 when it’s out in September and keep an eye on this blog.

Posted on Monday, August 4th, 2014 - Categories: Interviews, Long reads.