Buzz Aldrin's Radical Plan For NASA

FleaPlus writes "Apollo 11 astronaut (and MIT Astronautics Sc.D.) Buzz Aldrin suggests a bolder plan for NASA (while still remaining within its budget), which he will present to the White House's Augustine Commission; he sees NASA heading down the wrong path with a 'rehash of what we did 40 years ago' which could derail future exploration and settlement. For the short-term, Aldrin suggests canceling NASA's troubled and increasingly costly Ares I, instead launching manned capsules on commercial Delta IV, Atlas V, and/or SpaceX Falcon 9 rockets. In the medium-term, NASA should return to the moon with an international consortium, with the ultimate goal of commercial lunar exploitation in mind. Aldrin's long term plan includes a 2018 comet flyby, a 2019 manned trip to a near-earth asteroid, a 2025 trip to the Martian moon Phobos, and one-way trips to colonize Mars."

Comments

No Australians on Mars...

[GrpA]

Yeah, a one-way ticket to colonise some other place...

We believed you the first time, when you said we were all "Criminals" and needed to be sent to Australia.

We're going to be a bit more suspicious when you start sending us to Mars though for the same reason...

And it won't be for stealing bread this time I bet... Probably for downloading music or similar.

GrpA

Re:For the price of "setting foot on Mars"

[amorsen]

beaming back terrabytes of data every second.

Aresbytes, not Terrabytes.

Re:for what purpose? To mess up the moon?

[catxk]

IT'S THE MOON. Jesus.

Re:for what purpose? To mess up the moon?

[DoofusOfDeath]

IT'S THE MOON. Jesus.

You think Jesus didn't know that???

Re:Good ideas.

[Hognoxious]

It may be a long-term goal, but eventually we must send at least some people "off this rock".

You're proposing the mother of all offsite backups!