The first astronauts to walk on the moon want President Barack Obama to aim for a new destination: Mars.
On Monday, the Apollo 11 crewmen, fresh from a Washington lecture Sunday in which two of them expressed concerns about NASA getting bogged down on the moon, are meeting with Obama at the White House.
In one of their few joint public appearances, the crew of Apollo 11 spoke on the eve of the 40th anniversary of man’s first landing on the moon, but didn’t get soggy with nostalgia. They instead spoke about the future and the more distant past.
July 27th, 2009
Apollo 11 crew: Moon less interesting than Mars Albany Democrat-Herald
December 6th, 2003
Monkeying around on Mars Albany Democrat-Herald
In 20 years, the students gathered in the cafeteria of Westland Middle School on Saturday might be watching the first humans land on Mars as they huddle around their flat screen monitors. Or better yet, one of them might be stepping out of a spacecraft onto the red planet itself. For now, it’s the stuff of daydreams and science fiction novels, but the elementary and middle school students who attended the FIRST LEGO League tournament in Corvallis are already making plans to visit Mars. Teams from across the state gathered at Westland to compete in a robotics event that combines computer programming with LEGO know-how, in a Mars-themed event.