--- title: Buzz Aldrin Talks About How to Live on Mars | TIME description: Buzz Aldrin takes the stage for a conversation with Jeffrey Kluger, TIME editor-at-large and co-author of Apollo 13, to discuss his plans for creating a permanent human settlement on Mars canonical: https://time.com/video/bjHylquS/ og:title: Buzz Aldrin Talks About How to Live on Mars og:description: Buzz Aldrin takes the stage for a conversation with Jeffrey Kluger, TIME editor-at-large and co-author of Apollo 13, to discuss his plans for creating a permanent human settlement on Mars og:url: https://time.com/video/bjHylquS/ og:image: https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/bjHylquS/poster.jpg?width=720 og:type: video.other twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Buzz Aldrin Talks About How to Live on Mars twitter:description: Buzz Aldrin takes the stage for a conversation with Jeffrey Kluger, TIME editor-at-large and co-author of Apollo 13, to discuss his plans for creating a permanent human settlement on Mars twitter:image: https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/bjHylquS/poster.jpg?width=720 --- # Buzz Aldrin Talks About How to Live on Mars > Sponsored content. 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They are at time.com/newsletters and are separate from a paid subscription. ## Video: Buzz Aldrin Talks About How to Live on Mars [Watch (HLS stream): Buzz Aldrin Talks About How to Live on Mars](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/bjHylquS.m3u8) (1:02:57)  _Published 2017-03-14. Buzz Aldrin takes the stage for a conversation with Jeffrey Kluger, TIME editor-at-large and co-author of Apollo 13, to discuss his plans for creating a permanent human settlement on Mars_ --- Jul 27, 2023 9:37 PM UTC --- ## More From This Series [All Videos](https://time.com/video/) [Buzz Aldrin’s Antarctic Vacation Cut Short](/video/zdlTcm8Y/) ### Buzz Aldrin’s Antarctic Vacation Cut Short [Buzz Aldrin Has A Plan To Help Us Get To Mars](/video/i8VDrF6x/) ### Buzz Aldrin Has A Plan To Help Us Get To Mars [buzz-aldrin-easep-apollo-11-moon-landing](/video/tPdr9fKz/) ### buzz-aldrin-easep-apollo-11-moon-landing --- ## Transcript [ APPLAUSE ] [ APPLAUSE ] Well thank you so much for having us. It's a privilege to be here. It's a privilege to be at South by Southwest. It's a privilege in all circumstances to be with Buzz. I wanna follow up, just before we get started, I wanna follow up a little bit on what Julius said. We know Buzz from Apollo 11, part of the first crew of human beings to set foot on the surface of another world. [ APPLAUSE ] But there are other things we think less about. We don't know Buzz for his extraordinary West Point education. We don't know him for the 66 missions he flew in Korea in defense of his homeland. [ APPLAUSE ] We don't know him for the PhD here at MIT so that as Julia eluded to coronal Buzz Aldridge is actually doctor Buzz Aldridge and we don't know Buzz for his first flight in to space. The Gemini twelve mission which was the capstone of the Gemini program When Buzz logged a cumulative five and a half hours of extra- vehicular activity, or spacewalk, which was a record at the time. It was only after all that That he concluded it might be nice to get my boots dirty with lunar dust too. [ LAUGH ] So - >> [ APPLAUSE ] It's one more reason I enjoy being in Buzz's company. I was pretty lucky too. Well, yes, it was all, there were a lot of circumstancial - >> But I pioneered natural buoyancy under water. That's right, yeah. The spacewalking. Yeah. [ UNKNOWN ] Yes, that's right, it's the space walking neutral buoyancy tank, the rehearsal lab simulation lab for weightlessness at the Johnson Space Center. So we're here today to talk about a lot of things. But also to premiere a new virtual reality experience from 8i distributed by Time VR and Life VR Its Buzz's idea for cycling pathways to Mars. We're going to show a small Clip of it that gives you a sense what the VR experience is like. I've done it a few times. It's extraordinary, it's transportive. So if we can queue that film briefly first, then we'll get a chance to talk. [ BLANK_AUDIO ] Virtual reality just gives a sense of participating, of being right there, enlighten, involve in an exciting way. The future that I want to see. [ UNKNOWN ] has developed technology to capture holograms of real people which can be displayed in virtual or augmented reality. And who better than Buzz Aldrin being able to experience Buzz's vision in virtual reality? It allows people to actually be on Mars and see Buzz's vision for how we're gonna colonize [ INAUDIBLE ] I think what's so exciting about this project, in particular, is that we're creating nearly photo realistic holograms of historical icons. People can interact with him as though he's there in a way that was never possible before. Leaving an image behind for other people to see. Is like internal life in a way. It gives a glimpse of me while I am explaining what our future might be. I want to be remembered for more than just taking up [ UNKNOWN ] I want my legacy to include a permanent human settlement [ UNKNOWN ]. [ MUSIC ] [ APPLAUSE ] [ APPLAUSE ] So I'd like to begin by asking Buzz a little bit about the VR experience. Look we could see a flat screen, two dimensional rendering of exactly the same information. What was it about VR that made you want to invest the time and energy Capital to participate in this project? They asked me to do it. [ LAUGH ] [ LAUGH ] We can go on. No, I had seen holographic views, and 3D. But I had participated some in walking a little bit on the moon Are on Mars and the perspective that you can is just amazing when you're putting things on, and you're moving around everything is really changing, it's far better than when you put the glasses on on the 3D film It's just amazing and I'm not sure how exactly we're gonna put everybody in a position in a theater. It's sort of a one on involvement right now. Right. Yeah. And I'm sure the people who Putting it together, don't want me to say that. [ LAUGH ] because it is so realistic and I just hope that we are able to get it to a point where everyone can see something as it, Happening? Right. Well I think that. Or have been dreaming it. Right. And they will, I think the good folks who are making this happen will tell you that a lot of the answers to that are in augmented reality, and other kinds of work. Collective experiences. But let's get a little bit into the content of The VR experience. You have criticized what you've described as the flags and foot prints model, exploring or you [ CROSSTALK ] We did that and people said no that's just ,- Can you tell folks what that is although the name is sort of self explanatory but what is Flags and footprints and why does that have limitations? Well, it means that as a nation, we don't care too much about the science or the geology, or how long you're gonna stay or what you're gonna eat. We just want you to go there, put a flag down And you know nobody said anything about saluting the flag, yeah it was my idea, [ LAUGH ] . But it symbolises an expedition. You go there and you come right back. That's not the way we wanna venture outward at all So it's sort of a degrading term to say we don't want any more of this flags and footprints. So what do we want then? We don't want flags and footprints, how do we improve on that? [ SOUND ] Well, there are certain times when you can go To Mars. It's a conjunction time, every 26 months. And you leave before that time, leave the Earth, and you get there a little bit after that time. And this is when the Earth and Mars are in the best alignment of their two orbits? Yeah. The conjunction is when the sun and Mars and the Earth catches up with it. That and after that occurs next time the Earth goes around twice and Mars is going around once. It ain't quite caught up with it, but two more months and it will so that's 26 months is the time when you should be halfway there about. You should leave before that. If you're going from Earth to Mars. If you're at Mars and coming back, you should leave before that time and come back. It can be rather symmetric, and that leads to a simplified analysis. And I like to do that cuz I get a good Seat of the pants feeling is to, what's really going on. So you, we have, we've talked about the martian, it's hard not to, bring that up in this context. And one of the things we saw in the martian and you've been working on this idea for long before the martian came out, is that there is a big space liner, that never really lands anywhere. Anywhere and it simply cycles between Mars and Earth. And that doesn't seem to be how we usually think about space travel. So when you talk about cycling pathways, how does that kind of infrastructure come into play? Well, if you've seen pictures of Elon Musk's version of colonial transport And science fiction stories. If you're gonna send people, it's got on board this conveyance, everything you need. And when I first started trying to draw a picture, what does this machine, spacecraft, look like? That is gonna do what the trajectory, the trajectory will take a point and it'll get it where you want it, but what is the spacecraft gonna look like? And when I first put this together, of course I had to have artificial gravity and that goes around something in the center and I thought, well I can. Made redundancy. I just have to have another one here and I'll send two more. And so - >> So just so people are clear on this. It was so complicated. [ LAUGH ] You would never even think of proposing This for anybody would be so costly. Right, and this is what we're calling the cycler, this major piece that simply goes back and forth. And how do we take advantage of that? And it is so much simpler. Basically it's a cylinder with a port on the top, a port on the bottom. Six of them going around. That's the core vehicle, but, out of the top of it is a big circular photovoltaic array. Fixed, it's deployed. This way, and then it deploys out like a vent. Now, each one of these boxes are going out six directions, they lower down radiators away from where the sun is. And it's braced such Don't interfere with using the ports. And the ports are used for your space craft with crew then, comes up and ducks. Well, it's going by. Or you can have a spare, you can have supplies on it. In other words, this is going out, I come up from Earth, I hitch a ride, I duck with the cycler. I come out to Mars, when I get there, I come down, I go down to the surface, and the crew that's on the surface- The first cycler that I wanted to look at after I had played around with Earth moon cyclers, where once a month You can swing by the Earth three times and swing be the moon once. And why did we wanna go to the moon? What's the advantage of the moon here also? Because I know we've spoken about resources. I could use the word the moon enables. As to go to Mars, Essential as almost, It's almost mandatory in my way of thinking because the base that we want a Mars we will design and place it on the Moon. And we will do other things like landers will refuel so they can deliver these items. And the fuel of course- Now who designs these? We do. The U. S. The U. S. brings together five nations. US, Europe, Asia, and Russia, they have an agreement to work together at the moon, Japan and China. Now right now, Congress has very unwisely, that NASA can't even talk to the Russians. But I'm not with NASA, I can talk to them whenever I go. [ LAUGH ] I know other people. [ LAUGH ] [ COUGH ] So, see I have a Buzz Aldrin Institute in Florida at Melbourne, the Florida Institute of Technology. And the last time I went over there Five top people in the this Chinese base agency. We talked for about an hour. And they talked about maybe establishing a [ UNKNOWN ] institute there. You may not know this, but am the chancellor of the International Space University, headquarters now in Strasbourg, France. First chancellor was Arthur Clarke. The next one was Jean- Jacques Dordain, from Europe, ISA. And now I'm sure Arthur Clark didn't really think the headquarters were gonna be ins Sri Lanka. [ LAUGH ] But the headquarters is in France, in Strasbourg. Summer sessions around different places, but I think it's about time to at least have the western hemisphere represented. With a growing at least up to a half and I think, in Florida we've got the right place to start doing that. Well, when you were flying and when you first joined NASA, obviously the U. S. and the then Soviet Union were at dagger points. This was a foot race to the moon. Now, not only we are collaborating with Russia, but Russia is, untill such time as we build new human rated launchers, Russia is our only ticket off the planet. You clearly are not a big fan of US dependency on Russia but does this seem like a good core relationship on which to build. The idea of future ambitious missions to Mars. Well, a lot of people will call it a space race. Back in the 60s, I learned, and a number of us did, and I've been talking about it since then, just last year at 100th anniversary of MIT Aeronautics Department Before we got. People were kind of talking. And one old guy said, when Kennedy first walked into NASA. He said, well, this was after the Bay of Pigs. Not exactly a smashing success. [ LAUGH ] So. I guess it was maybe April of 61. Cuz he took office Inauguration Day after the election in 60 in January 20th, 1961. I remember that cuz that's my birthday, January 20th. [ LAUGH ] They have a parade every four years in Washington. [ LAUGH ] So the Bay of Pigs was sort of set aside, and so his speech before Congress was May 25th, 61. So some time around April, according to this guy at this 100th anniversary, Kennedy walked into NASA and sat down. And said, we've got to really boost our technology. I think we should go to Mars. [ SOUND ] Jaws dropped at NASA. Well, sir, I think that's maybe a little bit beyond us. Now whether it was a Wednesday or a Thursday, somebody said, well sir, Mr. President, we'll look into this and we'll report to you when the. And somebody said, that was busiest weekend NASA headquarters ever had. [ LAUGH ] And they said No, it's just beyond us. Maybe the moon in fifteen years. Well, it ended up not an egotistical during my term of office. Somebody said well, why don't you try a decade. Well, a decade was what we did and we beat that. So now what do I think we should do at an appropriate time? Soon, inauguration day? No, that's passed, we could've done something because a week later was the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 1 tragedy, 50 years earlier. But we have the 50th anniversary coming up of the first landing. It's about a little less than two and half years from now. That would be a good time to have digested, looked over plans. And I think at that time the President them could say, if he listens to me I believe that this nation should commit itself in two decades, for America to lead international cruise to occupy Mars. Now there several ways of getting to Mars, you can go at the right time, come back at the right, you Limus I think that's a visit or you can go there and not come back until the next people come, you keep it occupied. That's what I mean by occupied and the people that occupy may have a five year, four and a half, five year term, 30 or seven year or a ten year. None of those are very satisfactory to me, because we're going there at significant sacrifice, significant expense, and our purpose, I believe, is to settle the planet Mars. And I think, That should be our objective. That we're not gonna sell the American people, certainly not gonna sell the government on that right away. But if we occupy them, we've got several years to fine tune that, look at exactly what we're doing. And I believe then it's so powerful to have humans, human intelligence close to Mars in orbit, to control things at a about a second or less delay that is from the Earth. How much? Well 12 years ago we landed Spirit and Opportunity, rovers on opposite sides. And they were gonna last 90 days, that was about the guarantee. Well Spirit got stuck after five years, and Opportunity is still working. So the Person in charge, project manager of these missions Steve Squiers. Just to make a point to clarify cuz he knew they were sending daily instructions and we're moving around each one of them. He said that in five years But both of them moving around. What they accomplished in those five years could have been done in one week if we had human intelligence in orbit around Mars. Now that's phenomenal what you can get done by looking, telling something to do something, and then watching it and then correcting it. What you're talking about here is we would be initially based on Phobos, one of the moons, and then we could beam down at one and a half second time delay to the Mars surface, as opposed to 14 minutes. We've all been guessing That the air moon phobos, maybe is a good place. Whatever it is, and if it's phobos, goes around equatorial at 2. 76 mars radius. So at the moon let's go three moon radii, cuz it's smaller, polar orbit. And that makes it one diameter above the surface, so we'll put a spacecraft there that's the controller. And of course, you keep. Inside what is on the ground, on the surface, far side, near the South Pole, that's where the more shadow, we call PSR, permanently shaded regions. And that's where the ice Is from our detection and we think that's where the source of hydrogen, oxygen, and rocket fuel, liquid oxygen, liquid hydrogen is what we can then use to refuel spacecraft That are going somewhere. Okay and I'm just going to jump in for a second here cuz I want to be mindful of the time. The point was whatever we find works really well we will then modify what we do at Mars. Believe me I can get lost and we had a conversation at dander last night and I thought I could listen for the rest of the week. So, I understand it's hard to cut you up when you're speaking I never want to. [ LAUGH ] A couple of thought so in this thou, the US comes up against two challenges here. We are very risk a verse nation One of the reasons I wrote a book on Apollo Eight, which is currently available for pre- order in all fine websites. [ LAUGH ] One of the reasons- I got nine books. [ LAUGH ] [ APPLAUSE ] I defer. He writes for a magazine. [ LAUGH ] I get somebody else to do my writing. [ LAUGH ] But one of the reasons [ LAUGH ] that I enjoyed writing that was because that mission was a crap shoot. As you mentioned we had just lost The Apollo I crew in a launchpad fire. We were a year and a half away from the end of the decade deadline. And in the summer of 1968, NASA said let's throw our schedule out. Instead of a few cautious earth- orbital missions, we're gonna send these guys to the moon, and we're gonna do it in 16 weeks, which is a Fraction of what the usual training time is. So, do you think we have the backbone, the brass, to do that now? Missions were switched around a little bit about that time, because the lander wasn't going to be quite ready when they expected it. But the big thing The Soviets had sent a Zond around the moon and back, and landed in the ocean somewhere in the Aral Sea, and the next time they did the same thing. They landed in the normal recovery area in Kazakhstan. And it was figured just to a question and time before they put a cosmonaut in there. So we advanced some of the missions. I was on the backup crew for One of those third mission and Neal and I were in that back up with Jim Lovell at the time. And it ended up being Apollo 8 which was gonna orbit. And so it was really one of the Early one of the first, or the first mission that was gonna go to the moon. And it was just great to be on the backup crew for that and see all the planning that was going into it. And it certainly gave Neil and I a very good prelude To what was coming next. Now - >> If we're lucky. The other variable, of course, is money. Now I'm just gonna read a couple of numbers here. NASA's current budget just approved for the upcoming year will be just shy of $ 20 billion which is the highest it's been in several years. In 1965 The budget before we correct for inflation the budget in 1965 was 7. 5 billion which would be just shy of 60 billion dollars in today's budget, NASA represented 4 % of the U. S. budget in the 60s, it is now 0. 04 %. Do we have the wisdom? To spend the money it takes to become a two planet species. The wisdom to spend the money, that's the first time I've heard it [ LAUGH ] That it took smart to spend money. It takes physical wisdom With the taxpayers money, what we should be doing and you're right. That was a percentage in '67 or whatever it was, that was the peak of Apollo and that was 3. 5 to 4 %. And it was on a decline by the time we were able to get to the Moon. And it went down 1 % or less, a little up for the space shuttle, a little up for the station, but for over 10 years, 15, it's been about half of percent of discretionary fund Not what a lot of people think of 10, 20 % space program nurses does no get that kind of- [ UNKNOWN ] discussion of the funds. And right now is being spent on a lot of things, And they're three major expenses for man space flight it's the space station, 16 years it's been up there something like that. The O'Ryan spacecraft was supposed to be flying after the shuttle stopped flying. 2011, and it wasn't flying, it might fly ten years after that, 2021. So that space craft is a little behind schedule. And the rocket, started out As bits and pieces of the space shuttle. The tank had engines put on the bottom, payload on the top, and the same solid rockets that the shuttle had. Looked just like the shuttle, except there was no airplane and there was a payload on the top and solid rocket engines on the bottom. That was 1970s technology. Now, [ BLANK_AUDIO ] At the end of 03, the Challenger accident was 86 and They called me , accident was '03 >> February '03 >> February 1st they actually reported this meeting and near the end, November there's recommendation, one is, this is a dangerous machine. Has had lost two crews. But you can't stop now, they said, don't fly it past 2010, but 7 years to come up with a replacement. So we stopped flying, after 2 missions in 2011. And we haven't sent an American into orbit ever since, how do we get to our $ 100 billion space station? [ LAUGH ] We are paying the Russians space program to take us and the price As you'd expect, keeps going up. Yeah, that's one thing we always wanted the Russians to be capitalists. And now they discovered dynamic pricing. So, $ 60 millions dollars. [ LAUGH ] Now, Commercial Transportation, commercial space crafts and rockets, felt they could replace the Spacecrafts and rockets it was not ready so, they begun competing and of course they needed to be subsidize by the government, they just didn't do it all by themselves. So, they have been delivering cargo as space ex and bowing [ BLANK_AUDIO ] Now SpaceX and Orbital Science have been delivering cargo, and within a year or something SpaceX and Boeing expect to be able to deliver crew, we hope. [ BLANK_AUDIO ] Without delivering crew to Earth orbit, we're not going anywhere. That's really, First, than we were in April of 1961. And that raises another question. Because, when you say, we're not going anywhere, that's a heartfelt, that's a lament. A question I've often had and I mentioned this at a TED talk in Nashville, I mean Ashville, forgive me In 2012. One of the reasons that we go to space, I feel, and this is more a poetic reason. Is simply because we go because that's what we as an idiosyncratic species do. It's the same reason we write symphonies and we dance. None of that stuff keeps us alive but it's all reasons we wanna be alive. Yep. In the first place, do you feel there is a safe space for that sentiment? Or must it always be this is how we can benefit pragmatically, financially, technologically from space? You used the word safe at the beginning? Safe, well, safe space for our conversation. Yeah, I thought we were gonna get Yeah I had a speech writer help me out. He said, we explore or we expire. [ LAUGH ] That's about it, as far as a vibrant nation that we all assume we're part of, we're in it We don't want to expire. We have to excel. In the 60s and 70s our education was right up there at the top. Nobody ever head of STEM education. But we're not up there, we're down here. How did all of that happen? Well, I've been working on a think tank to try and figure out what are the other things that we do, right. After World War 2 and what are the things that we could've done a little better? Unfortunately, we haven't got Funded for that. But it's ready and a lot of us are thinking about that and that's gonna be quite valuable. Some people are not going to like what we come up with, report. We're not advising NASA, we're not advising Congress, or the executive, the President. No, no, this is gonna be simple reports, quarterly maybe, simple basic, educational, to the American people. Letting them know, understand what did happen. The reason we are where we are is not just because of the last 5 years, 10 years, 15 years, but really It started near the end of the Apollo program but I just don't wanna make judgements cuz I sort of put this think tank together and I'm letting it with very respected people who saw. Managers. [ BLANK_AUDIO ] Corporation people and government people who saw this program from the very beginning and are still Quite aware of what's going on. And we'll assemble some more people, and it will be one of the more fantastic things that I've said, hey, let's do this. Now I want to ask you one more question. And then we will have time for audience Q and A. And I also think we'll have some online questions. Let's get a little bit again to that sort of sense of abstract human existential uplift from being in space, you are in the surface of the moon you had at one hand the opportunity look arround and experience that head snapping sensation that here you were On the other hand, you were running an engineering mission. Now, you told us a story last night at dinner which I know you've told before about coming out feet first From the [ unknown ] and having a particular protocol for closing the hatch and the way that the details of that were built into the flight plan. I wonder if you would sort of repeat what you said last night. Quickly. I knew what the checklist said. Neil had gone down feet first. So I guided him out cuz the hatch wasn't all that wide opening, and of course before all of this we had the backpacks on and we depressurized the cabin. And the gauge goes down to zero, and I grabbed the handle and it wouldn't open. We had to wait a little longer until the pressure got lower than the zero on the gauge, then I could open it. So, just a very little pressure would, so Neil goes out, and it's my turn. A little later, and I go out. And the checklist said, reach back, partially close the hatch. [ BLANK_AUDIO ] So I said to the world, I'm gonna reach back and partially close the hatch. Being careful not to lock it on my way out. [ LAUGH ] And Neil said, that's a good idea. [ LAUGH ] There wasn't a handle on the outside. And a little bit of pressure could have slammed that shut. As Jim Lovell once said, in a situation like that- No, sometimes you just throw a phrase out but the classic really. Cuz I have a fear amount of time it think about this once we solve the problem of being able to live, Come on, that's another story but so, we want to sleep got up and forgetting where you live And I know what's happening back in Houston, mission control. All the people in the different systems. The flight director, Gene Kranz, is going around and naming each one, and each one says " Go Flight. Go Flight ." That's his name, The Flight. Director. Now, when he gets all of them. He says to the astronaut, who's named Capcom, capsule communicator. He says, Capcom or go for lift off. All right, whoever it was, I know, he's gonna call to us. Now we changed our name, so we were Tranquility Base when we were on the surface. So, he calls up and says, Tranquility Base, you're cleared for takeoff. I knew it was up to me to acknowledge that we got that. And the computer's counting down So I said, Roger, Houston, we're number one on the runway. [ LAUGH ] Now that's absurd. [ LAUGH ] We're the only people up there. [ LAUGH ] And it wasn't any runway and you laughed. Now, five, ten years later Some comedian told me that the definition of comedy is, Ed McMahon, Johnny Carson, talking about something routine. And one of the two of them says something just crazy, absurd. Now they can either smile or treat it as if nothing has happened, if they were confident. And then the audience laughs. So that's humor. [ LAUGH ] I found myself not able to remember jokes, but I'll be talking about something to somebody, we'd be talking about, maybe the Gemini rendezvous and I said, now when we get to go to Pluto, we're gonna Pluto. [ LAUGH ] What do you mean Pluto? Well, that's absurd. [ LAUGH ] So I do that. It's not eve na planet anymore. [ LAUGH ] But I have been doing that just To see the smile on someone's face. There we go, right on talking about it. Those are- Occasionally, I meet some people that don't know me that well [ LAUGH ] And they think I'm crazy. What in the world is this thing? [ LAUGH ] So, about a year, two years ago I stopped to think, what is it that I'm doing? We're talking about this and I'm sampling things, is this something I can use? Cuz I'm listening to what they're saying. I gotta answer whoever it is I'm talking to. And if it meets [ SOUND ] The sniff test or whatever. [ LAUGH ] Then I'll use that. But what is that? I found that I am teaching my brain to think out of the box. Man That has done me so much good in the past 30, 40, 50 years whatever. And it is profound, if for some reason, you have friends that will understand quirky things and we can get by with people that don't know him, but If you can somehow train your brain to be thinking about something and looking at alternatives, how can I make something better? I feel blessed and maybe number one on the runway means that I had some of that before. Somebody told me what hell it was? [ LAUGH ] And so, I put it in in the last book of it that I wrote. Very good book. If you can cultivate that, that idea and anyway I'm not just thinking of here's the way we did it because, that's the way we did it before and yeah, work in. So that's what we're gonna do And that's not progress. You have to expand your way of thinking into, not absurdities, not risky things, but better ways of doing things. So, that's a very good point to break. I would love to take some questions from the audience. And I think we might see some streaming in from online. I'm not sure. But anyone at that first mic. Hi. I'm a first year grad student at UT, and I'm constantly struggling in keeping my eyes On the angle, and enough waking asking myself, why am I here, why am I doing this. So, while you- What were you doing last night? [ LAUGH ] Here's the most asked question. Yeah. [ LAUGH ] So you are known for your achievements, but I was wondering Along the way you had many struggles. So what would you do along the way to keep yourself motivated and your eye on the prize? You had some struggles along the way, some challenges. What did you do to keep yourself focused? Well, it's in my career, after Korea I instructed, then I went to the Air Force Academy, when it first opened up, I was there for two years, Aid to the Dean of Faculty. Then I went from there over to Germany, and from there to MIT, and. Shortly after that, and White called me up, you're behind me at Westpoint, he said, 62, NASA's gonna pick some more astronauts. He said, we're going through test pilot school and I'm doing that, he say's, I'm qualified I'm going to apply. And I said well, Ed, we're in the same squadron and I can shoot gunnery better than you can, so I'll apply too. [ LAUGH ] But I had not chosen to want to become a test pilot. The Air Force has room for only one Chuck Yeager Not to. I certainly didn't wanna, So, I didn't do that. So, I was not qualified but I said, ''Ed, I can shoot better than you so I'll apply too''. He got picked. I didn't. But I kept on trying. I lobbied. NASA a little bit quietly and I worked on some things, talked to other people about Rendezvous cuz that was gonna be one of the four big objectives of the Gemini program cuz we'd finished Apollo, I mean, Mercury by that time. And so my timing was just got it right. So in 73, they decided to take a gamble on me. 63. Yeah, 63, yeah. [ LAUGH ] And - >> And I became known as Dr. Rendezvous. [ LAUGH ] [ LAUGH ] We had a lot of Air Force, Navy competition. And the term was not always a complimentary term. [ LAUGH ] Anyone else, yes? First, thanks so much for being here. It's a real honor to listen to you and just be in the same room. My question was, if you could describe for us what it felt like and maybe the experience and the emotions you had learning you would be part of the Apollo 11 crew, that crew that would be the first people to land on the moon. [ BLANK_AUDIO ] It's rather hard for me to communicate that to you and have you really understand, because we were going through a training. And, we lost some of the astronauts in aircraft accidents. And, some things were harder than others. And the normal rotation, the way things shifted around with the Russian's gonna make this and Apollo 8 gonna go to the moon. It wasn't supposed to be, The rotation is if you've got a primary backup for a particular mission when the primary crew flies, you have a crew to the next two primary backup. So the backup crew becomes the prime on three- Three missions later. Later. Well, now just real quickly my first assignment in Gemini was Back up with Jim Lovell on Germany 10. Okay, now, projecting into the future when it flew. We're in the back up group. There's a crew on 11 and 12 so we would be prime on 13. But there wasn't any 13 [ BLANK_AUDIO ] Dr. Rendezvous was not programmed to fly in the Gemini program. A tragedy changed all of that and a number of other things have worked out in favor. So one crew perished in a plane accident. Yeah. And you then became. Prime crew of nine was killed and. Backup moved up and we became the backup on 9 and the prime crew on 12. [ COUGH ] [ BLANK_AUDIO ] Now with the switching around of the missions, we knew, Neil and I, and at that time Jim Lovell was on there, that [ BLANK_AUDIO ] There's 9, and 10, and 11. Nine is gonna rendezvous in Earth orbit, ten is gonna be, we could figure out that if things worked out, we would be given an opportunity to be the first crew to land [ COUGH ] So the crew assignments, were days and days and days coming out. But when they did finally come up I wrote this in my first autobiography. I came home and told my wife We're on the cruise going to make the first landing we're scheduled but frankly I just assume be on a later one we get more interesting things to do and I wouldn't have to put up with all this Speeches all around the world and everything. [ LAUGH ] Honest, I felt that way. But, the choice I knew but I had to share that with someone close to me. I just shared that I did have that feeling, no way could I have possibly Turned that down. I just wasn't a fighter pilot, no matter what you think about it. So obviously, that's what I felt about when I was assigned. And it was a great. Our privilege to have had things work out the way they did. And I'm a very lucky person. My mother's born when the Wright brothers flew. I got to fly in an airplane, my father was flying when I was two years old. Teenager on World War II. Combat? And now, after landing on the moon, now I'm working intensely on how we're gonna put people, long after I'm gone, not long. [ LAUGH ] On Mars. Now, what better time could a person [ BLANK_AUDIO ] Be alive. And just- [ APPLAUSE ] Just to add one detail of some things being kismet, being meant to be, being beshert as it's said in the Jewish religion, Your mom's maiden name was, what? Moon. [ LAUGH ] Name was Marion Moon, so there was something in there. Well, Bobby Moon and I, [ BLANK_AUDIO ] Seven or eight years old, went To a lake, and we were taken care of by grandmother. Mama moon. [ LAUGH ] Not bad. I mean that's perfectly normal. Of course [ LAUGH ] Not for me it wasn't. Could we see one, and we will get to another when in the house, can we see one coming up from online, cuz I'm grateful that we have so many folks watching. No, I'm being told that's not happening. [ LAUGH ] We will proceed with humans in the room. [ LAUGH ] . First of all Dr. Hol, Holden sorry, you are an american hero and I appreciate all the work that you have done to inspire people like me and the rest of the world in everything that you have done and you continue to do next. So thank you for that. I've had a ball. Good. [ LAUGH ] Great fun, really. Challenging, but very satisfying. Back before you guys went to the moon, President Kennedy gave his famous speech, and said that we were going to go to the moon, not because it was easy but because it was hard and that inspired millions of people as well. Some people thought he was crazy but it inspired a ton of people. And we did it. And you guys did it. Now it feels like that has transferred more over to people like Elon Musk or yourself or Dr. Zubrin, people that are evangelizing that. And the presidents seems to talk less and less about it. And the government seems to talk less and less about it. Do you think that's a positive shift? Do you think that's a positive thing for that to transfer into more of a commercial role? Those inspiring people that, Elon wants to go to Mars. No, I was in Mexico when he gave a briefing a year ago about what he's hoping to be able to do. And it's It's bodacious. [ LAUGH ] He's a transportation person, he builds rockets. Three or four years ago, I had been toying around with cyclers since 1985 and. Slowly so I felt I wanted to go over and talk to him about what his ideas might be. So Christina and I went over there to have lunch. We stood up all the time and I said I wanted to talk about the things that I had been kind of going over and maybe we could share thoughts about Mars. No, no, no. We know how to get to Mars. We're gonna build big rocket and put a dragon on top, and we're gonna go and land on Mars. Just to be clear, that's the name of Elon's spacecraft. Right. He doesn't plan to put a dragon on top. He's eccentric. I'm sorry. Yeah. Of course. He's not that eccentric. [ LAUGH ] [ LAUGH ] It's not Chinese dragon either, not yet. So I said, well now when your dragon lands on Mars with the people, is there gonna be anything down there if we live in or do? [ BLANK_AUDIO ] [ LAUGH ] It seemed as though maybe he hadn't given that a lot of thought, then he said well for sure we're gonna send an unmanned dragon down there first so we'll be able to live in that. [ BLANK_AUDIO ] He's a transportation person, he's not a housing person. [ LAUGH ] He's not a builder of towers. [ BLANK_AUDIO ] [ LAUGH ] For whatever value that has. [ LAUGH ] You really need to not just go there and stay a day and come back. You can't do that. The orbital dynamics won't let you do that. If you go there you gotta wait, depending on how inefficient. And if you're very efficient, you stay there for a year and a half before you come back. And you gotta live in something. And you've gotta prepare for all of that, but if you go and you come back in a year and a half, it's empty. Nobody's there. I call that a visit. Now, if you go there, and you stay after a year and a half until somebody else comes, Then you can go back. Now let's occupy, somebody's there all the time. That's not as really what you would want to have happen, I don't think. You can have a tour of duty there, five years, seven, ten years and come back Making a pronouncement by a president that I'm gonna send people to Mars and dribble them there and eventually somebody when we're all gone will begin to populate permanently. It costs so much money to get people there. Every time you do it again, it's two years more. Why don't you be smart about it and build things up first. And people go there, and they can do the final touches, and then they land. And the rest of them land, after that. Now, that's what I think. And few other people, many others I think, if they think about it longer. But not congressmen, not others, it's gonna take a while before they, before it absorbs in. What the purpose of humans on this planet, going to another planet and turning around and coming back I don't even think it's 50 50 it's actually yes or no but it's going to change I can assure you you're gonna begin to think hopefully and you'll agree that we're doing something so well Because we've done essential things and saved money by having international partners at the Moon. We designed things. We'll build one, maybe two landers, habitats. They'll build the rest, they'll land them, but we'll put them together and make sure they work. The landers to take them there we'll engineer so we can refuel them. Right away, so we don't bring them back to earth then send them back again or leave them there and throw them away? You have to be economical, you have to be. Wise about how you plan things into the future. And we will be safe as possible, I can guarantee you that. And this gets to the difference between flags and footprints on one hand, and infrastructure on the other. Now, I'm seeing by our countdown clock, we are at T minus one minute and 31 seconds before we will be blasted off from this room. I do wanna say just a couple of things, just a word for My home team Time Magazine and time. com have been covering America's role and the world's role in space for the better part of 60 years now. We continue to do that. We do that with our [ UNKNOWN ] application. We did it with our Year in Space series on Scott Kelly's mission to the Space Station. We hope that folks will stay with us in this kind of coverage. And the very last thing I want to say is one more thing about Buzz. The first time I met Buzz was in 1990. I suspect you don't remember it. It was indelible for me. We had a dinner on the Intrepid. I happened to share a cab ride with Buzz. By which I mean I elbowed my way to the front of the line next to Buzz and therefore was put in a cab with him. We were in the back seat of a taxi going east on- [ LAUGH ] West 46th Street. And there was a gigantic, silver, salad plate of a moon hanging over East 46th Street. Buzz was ignoring it, just talking, looking out the front window. I thought we have had radically different life experiences relative to that body. THere have been so far only 24 human beings in the entire arc of human existence who can speak about the moon in first person singular We hope that number will change and change soon and we will add people who can speak about Mars in the first person singular, but for today we've spent an hour with one of those people. And I just wanna come away, once again, appreciating that we've had that experience. [ APPLAUSE ] Jeffrey has been at the top At the forefront of things in space that have been moving ahead. And it makes me feel really good that the way things have worked out, the first people who land on Mars, they'll put things together first, then they'll land. The plan I have, they will go to the moon. Maybe they're 27, 29, 30 years old, they will put things together from orbit. They will go down to the surface and stay there for a while. They will know what they're getting into. And when they may have agreed that this is a good idea, national objective of settling. But before they actually make that personal committment, they will have experienced exactly what Pretty close what they. Now, that is just the way it worked out, by doing, I thought, well, [ UNKNOWN ] made a suggestion. Now that is remarkable that you can be able to do such a thing. And to me That alone would sell the program to any, almost any congressmen. Well no, not all of them. [ LAUGH ] But I wanted you to just get a grasp of what, how, in a way why it's taking, gonna take so long. Two decades after, five decades after, landing on the moon, one decade after the president had said to go. And yet, the first person who will set foot on Mars, is somewhere alive in the world today, and I like to think that. My guess is born in 2000 right around there. So Sounds good. There is some incredibly cool 17 year old out there that has- [ LAUGH ] [ APPLAUSE ] Thank you very much. Great. Wonderful. ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"Buzz Aldrin Talks About How to Live on Mars","description":"Buzz Aldrin takes the stage for a conversation with Jeffrey Kluger, TIME editor-at-large and co-author of Apollo 13, to discuss his plans for creating a permanent human settlement on Mars","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/bjHylquS/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2017-03-14T22:33:39.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/bjHylquS.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/video/bjHylquS/","duration":"PT1H2M57S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/video/bjHylquS/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}} ```