40th anniversary of Apollo11

40 years ago on July 20, 1969, first manned-spacecraft landed on moon. While celebrating this event, the three astronauts called for Mars mission. BBC Report: Moon astronauts urge Mars mission


The three man crew of the Apollo11 mission, Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins met on July 20, 2009 to commemorate this day.

• At a rare public reunion of the Apollo 11 crew, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins said Mars instead of the Moon should be the focus of exploration.

Astronaut Neil Armstrong :.

• Mr Armstrong told the audience: "It was the ultimate peaceful competition: USA vs USSR.

Astronaut Buzz Aldrin:

• "Apollo 11 is a symbol of what a great nation and a great people can do if we work hard, work together and have strong leaders with vision and determination," he said.
• But he also pushed for a mission to Mars: "The best way to honour and remember all those who were part of the Apollo programme is to follow in our footsteps; to boldly go again on a new mission of exploration."

Astronaut Michael Collins:

• "Sometimes I think I flew to the wrong place. Mars was always my favourite as a kid and it still is today."
• He urged further exploration, saying: "I worry that the current emphasis on returning to the Moon will cause us to become ensnared in a technological briar patch needlessly delaying for decades the exploration of Mars - a much more worthwhile destination."

Astronaut Eugene Cernan :

• Eugene Cernan, who was the last astronaut to step off the Moon, concurred with the Apollo 11 astronauts urging a new focus on Mars.
• "We need to go back to the Moon, we need to learn a little bit more about what we think we know already, we need to establish bases, put new telescopes there, get prepared to go to Mars. The ultimate goal, truly, is to go to Mars," he told journalists.

While we cannot let this effort be a drain on our scarce resources, we also cannot afford to not be a part of it either. Here is a snippet from my previous post, Indian space and new Frontiers (Nov 23, 2008)

• ISRO has traditionally adopted down-to-earth goals of bringing the benefits of space missions to common man in terms of helping fishermen, educational satellites and remote sensing. ISRO has met its charter and given back a lot to the tax payers. ISRO now needs to look beyond and establish itself in such a way that it should be a natural part of any international space mission of the future. ISS is yesterday's news, EMM is the new frontier and ISRO needs to be in the forefront of new age of space exploration