Buzz Aldrin – Mars Advocate

In my blog, Mars or Bust, I discuss Mars One Project’s plan to establish a Mars colony by 2023 and in that blog I mention that Neil Armstrong is the first person to walk on the moon.

Courtesy Google

Armstrong may have been the first but Dr. Buzz Aldrin was a close second. Buzz Aldrin stepped onto the moon’s surface fifteen minutes after Neil Armstrong.

Buzz Aldrin’s contribution to the United States space program is noteworthy. According to biography.com, Aldrin earned his Ph. D in aeronautics and astronautics. His thesis subject, “Line-of-sight guidance techniques for manned orbital rendezvous” is the study of bringing piloted spacecraft into close proximity to one another. As a result, when he joined NASA he was put in charge of creating docking procedures for spacecraft.

Courtesy Google Images

After retiring from the role of active NASA astronaut, Buzz Aldrin continued to be a proponent of the space program. According to damninterest.com, in 1985 Aldrin reasoned there must be trajectories that swing by Earth and Mars every twenty-six months or so. Consequently, physicists discovered an orbit that behaved as Aldrin predicted. It was named the Aldrin Cycler.

Courtesy Google Images

National Geographic reports that in Aldrin’s latest book, Mission to Mars (2013 National Geographic Society), he details a plan that would lead to a permanent settlement on Mars. He advocates for an international coalition similar to that which built the International Space Station so that the costs would be spread among international teammates.

Aldrin’s plan calls for permanent settlers on Mars. According to National Geographic, he believes that establishing a permanent settlement on Mars will be incentive to build a cycling system so that the settlers are not abandoned.

Once the cycling system is complete, we will have the ability to efficiently ferry people and supplies to Mars.

I wonder if Aldrin has been in contact with the Mars One Project people. It would seem that his knowledge could greatly enhance the chances of success for that program.

What do you think? Would an international entity be our best shot at getting to Mars?

Courtesy Google Images

NEWS

6/17/13: According to ABC News, NASA selects eight new astronauts. ABC News states, “NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said these new candidates will help lead the first human mission to an asteroid in the 2020s, and then Mars …”

6/18/13: On this date in 1983, thirty years ago, Sally Ride became the first American woman in space.

Sally Ride
Courtesy Google Images

Space Telescope

There have been a host of big screen and television disaster movies featuring comets, meteors and asteroids either colliding with or on a collision course to earth. Big screen productions such as Meteor (1979), Deep Impact (1998), Armageddon (1998) and the very recent Seeking a Friend for the End of the World (2012) feature huge extraterrestrial objects hurtling toward earth.

Discovery News quotes Dr. Donald K. Yeomans, head of NASA’s Near Earth Object (NEO) Program Office, "On a daily basis, we're hit with basketball-sized objects, and Volkswagen-sized objects come in a few times a year."

Large scale impacts are not without precedent. National Geographic says scientists theorize that on June 30, 1908 a meteor may have crashed into a remote area of Siberia with a force of roughly 15 megatons.

I’ve read some stories that believe the asteroid named 2011AG5, which is 460 feet wide, could impact the earth in 2040. However, Yahoo News reports that NASA estimates the odds of 2011AG5 crashing into earth as a 1 (one) on the Torino Impact Hazard Scale. (The likelihood of a collision is so low as to be effectively zero.)

But, that doesn’t mean it couldn’t happen; stranger things have occurred. After all, the Red Sox did win two World Series.

Courtesy Google Images

Enter, the Sentinel Mission. According to their website, the B612 Foundation, a nonprofit group of independent scientists, is planning to raise funds to build, launch, and operate the first privately funded deep space mission – a space telescope to be placed in orbit around the sun. The intent is to create a comprehensive map of our inner solar system illustrating the paths of 98% of the asteroids, both large and small. They hope to have the telescope in orbit within 10 years.

But I wonder, if a huge meteor is discovered bearing down on our hapless planet, would we be able to do anything more than brace for impact?

What do you think? Would you want to know if the world was going to end in 21 days?