Apollo 11 astronauts Michael Collins and Buzz Aldrin have some thoughts on the space program.
To get to Mars, you have to land on the moon, they say.
That’s how NASA frames it. The moonwalkers disagreed.
Asked how to get to the red planet, Collins said he favored “Mars direct”—a concept endorsed by people ranging from SpaceX founder Elon Musk to Robert Zubrin’s Mars Society. Essentially, rather than following a stepping-stone approach, they’d like to see an ambitious Apollo-style lunge that leverages everything from nuclear reactors to resources on the surface of Mars itself.
Trump took a liking to the idea. As Aldrin egged the president on—”you’re impatient” with the current program, he suggested, nudging the president toward the potentially faster “Mars direct” plan—Trump asked Bridenstine, “who knows better than these people?”
Bridenstine outlined his concerns with the “Mars direct” idea, un-detailed in the pool report. They likely included the cost required to send people on a daunting six-month journey into deep space, and NASA’s long pre-launch to-do list, ranging from developing more efficient life support systems to a deeper understanding of how cosmic radiation affects humans.
The conversation continued on friendlier lines until Aldrin said a few words.
“Actually, I’ve been a little disappointed over the last 10 or 15 years,” the outspoken space elder statesmen declared, noting that NASA doesn’t have an operational spacecraft capable of going to the moon, or low-Earth orbit for that matter. It wouldn’t be the first time he expressed his concerns about the agency’s current direction.
“How do you feel about that, Jim?” Trump asked his NASA administrator.
“We’re working on it,” Bridenstine said, noting the development of a spacecraft called Orion.
https://qz.com/1670721/apollo-11s-buzz-aldrin-tells-trump-hes-disappointed-in-nasa/