Pat's Posts: Moonwalker Pan’s Nasa’s Plans

The third man to ever moon walk (first there was Armstrong, then Michael Jackson), Buzz Aldrin has labled NASA’s manned space programme bit of a stinker and has instead come up with his own alternative space programme. The guts of Aldrin’s plan centres around containing costs and on colonising Mars as well going back to the moon where we’ve boldly already been.

Aldrin believes that Nasa’s current plans are a “a glorified rehash of what we did 40 years ago” and will see money and engineering talent taken away from Mars. Aldrin has instead proposed a “Unified Space Vision”.  Central to Aldrin’s vision is stretching out the space shuttle programme through to 2015 to continue to service the international space station.

Aldrin also proposes that Nasa work with other international space agencies (e.g. China, Europe, Russia, India and Japan) who could share costs. This believes Aldrin, would also allow both the US and China to avoid any wasted duplication resulting from another costly space race to the moon and would instead allow them to pool resources. Inviting China to join the international space station partnership makes a whole lot of sense if you are a beanie as the costs associated with the space station could be greatly reduced by utilising China’s Shenzhou spacecraft to help transport cargo and astronauts to the station, plus chopsticks and noodles sound like a whole lot of fun in zero gravity.

Whilst Aldrin see’s some short term potential in going back to the moon, he thinks it should have to pay its own way (cheesew harvesting anyone?) and that the big goal should be Mars. Aldrin argues that humans should stay on Mars permanently and that by making Mars missions one-way missions would significantly less expensive. Aldrin argues that “Instead of explorers, one-way Mars travelers will be 21st-century pilgrims, pioneering a new way of life.”

Should we keep the shuttles or is Aldrin a mad old coot who needs to be put into a home? Let us know what you think.