Forty years after Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin was part of a historic first, becoming the second man to walk on the moon, he dared President Barack Obama to seize the reins of history – and send Americans to land a man on Mars, or one of its two moons, Phobos.
Aldrin said the president has “the most glorious opportunity to go down in history” if he declared the United States’ intent to send astronauts to the Red Planet – much as President John F. Kennedy dared the United States to send men to the moon in 1961.
Speaking Thursday at the Cradle of Aviation Museum in East Garden City, where he was signing copies of two recent books, Aldrin said if the United States sent “creatures from the Earth to set up life on another planet” it would be viewed “for thousands and thousands of years like Alexander the Great, Magellan and Columbus.”
He said Obama could take credit for the vision.
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What GASL does is conduct wind tunnel tests on advanced engines that would make possible the kind of high-speed flight needed for space exploration. The company has eight wind tunnels — the largest has a test chamber that is 7 feet in diameter. The tunnels resemble barrels with portholes to make observations on objects being tested. The tunnels are fueled by hydrogen, oxygen and air and are humming much of the time.