To celebrate the 45th anniversary of the first human landing on the moon (July 20th 1969) is a special moment for everyone. On this occasion, President Barack Obama had a private meeting with the two living members of Apollo 11 crew, Edwin (Buzz) Aldrin (the second moonwalker in history) and Michael Collins (the command module pilot), the event including Neil Armstrong’s widow, Carol. Four and a half decades after the first lunar landing, the White House plans to send a human mission to an asteroid by 2025, and later, by the mid 2030s, to Mars. The Obama administration cancelled a program that was destined to send astronauts back to the moon, although recent reports could convince the authorities that destinations like Mars are impossible to reach without additional lunar missions: “The moon, and in particular its surface, (has) significant advantages over other targets as an intermediate step on the road to the horizon goal of Mars” stated a report of the National Research Council’s Committee on Human Spaceflight.
Neil Armstrong, who passed away in 2012 at the age of 82, was honored by NASA on Monday at the Kennedy Space Center, where the historic Operations and Checkout Building was renamed after him. Armstrong was remembered by his two former Apollo 11 crewmates in front of an audience that included live talks with the astronauts onboard the International Space Station. Aldrin characterized him as “one of the best, certainly the best pilot, I feel, that was selected for a NASA program”. Regarding the initiative of renaming a building after the former leader of the Apollo 11 mission, Michael Collins recalled Armstrong’s famous modesty, by pointing out that he “would not have sought this honor, that was not his style“.
Usually, when asked about humans returning to the moon, Buzz Aldrin emphasizes the importance of Mars oriented missions: “For America, another destination is calling”, he declared once. “America’s longer-term goal should be permanent human presence on Mars”. Aldrin is a very well known advocate of one way trips to Mars, destined to establish a permanent settlement on the red planet. His vision seems to bear the mark of general disappointment felt by some after the funding cuts that stopped the moon exploration in December 1972, with only 12 men having the opportunity to walk on our natural satellite. “If we go and come back, and go and come back, I’m sure Congress will say, ‘Oh, we know how to do that, let’s spend the money somewhere else’, ” warns him, concluding that “everything we will have invested will be sloughed aside”.