Buzz Aldrin Quotes

We do need different types of propulsion to get to Mars. I wrote one of the first Ph.D. theses on that in the 1960s.

If there is a small rocket on top of a big one, and if the big one is jettisoned and the small one is ignited, then their speeds are added.

It would take six months to get to Mars if you go there slowly, with optimal energy cost. Then it would take eighteen months for the planets to realign. Then it would take six months to get back, though I can see getting the travel time down to three months pretty quickly if America has the will.

I don't think there is much value in trying to use the moon as a base to go to Mars. That's going into one gravity belt and having to get back out of it again. And the moon doesn't have a lot to offer as a resource base.

The factor most ignored in discussing interstellar flight is the kinetic energy that must be invested in the ship to make its tons of matter move at a substantial fraction of the speed of light.

Chemical propulsion is obsolete to go anywhere other than the moon. Three days - that's acceptable. But for Mars, we need propulsion technologies to get us there in, say, 60 days - then spend whatever length of time we want to spend and return when we want to come home.

I don't go along with going to Moon first to build a launch pad to go to Mars. We should go to Mars from Earth orbit. We have already been to the Moon; we've already practiced.

If you're in space on the way to Mars, and a conflict develops... you can't turn around and go back, because Earth is already gone on its orbit.

The space program needs a goal, and the goal should be humans to Mars.

I don't think we're going to build a 50-person spacecraft or a 100-person spacecraft.

Buzz Aldrin doesn't think we need to go back to the Moon - that we should go straight on to Mars. I'm more on the side that says we should go back to the Moon. I think there's a lot we can utilise the Moon for scientifically.

Let's not spend resources that we don't need to be sending astronauts back to the moon. Let's not spend expensive resources on bringing people who have reached Mars back again. Prepare them to become a growing colony.

If you're going to go to the moon, you don't shoot the rocket right at the moon. You have to go at it obliquely.

My vision is for a fully reusable rocket transport system between Earth and Mars that is able to re-fuel on Mars - this is very important - so you don't have to carry the return fuel when you go there.

Build a rocket ship and leave the earth!

The communications delays between Earth and Mars can be half an hour or more, so the people on the ground can't participate minute by minute in Mars surface activities.

Am I willing to go to Mars? Yes, but I'm not willing to spend nine months getting there, then wait 18 more months until the planets align to come home.

There are people who would love to spend their last ten years, or five years, or whatever it is, on the surface of Mars.

I would enjoy flying to Mars. This was the dream of the first cosmonauts. I wish I could realize it! I am ready to fly without coming back.

Britain should definitely be part of a Mars mission.

I think humans will reach Mars, and I would like to see it happen in my lifetime.

We want to make sure we get living astronauts to the surface of Mars.

You wouldn't want to land on the Moon and launch to Mars. That would be very inefficient.

We're not going to get humans to Mars until at least the mid-2030s, and the world is going to change by then.

Man must at all costs overcome the Earth's gravity and have, in reserve, the space at least of the Solar System.