Colonizing Mars: Can We Escape The Apocalypse? Buzz Aldrin's Startling Answers [Interview Photos]

Visions of permanent human settlements on Mars all include methods by which inhabitants can grow plants and produce food. Picture: Bryan Versteeg/Spacehabs.comSource:Supplied

It's Mars or bust, says Buzz Aldrin, Apollo 11 hero and space explorer extraordinaire in an interview with News Corp.

“I don’t think we really understand how much we can take of that, [radiation] or from how much we can be protected in efficient ways..."

While in Australia, Buzz Aldrin spoke to News Corp. about his passion for a human outpost on Mars. The promo is part of National Geographic’s series of talks, Mars: The Live Experience.

Would Buzz take such a risk?

Buzz Aldrin Speaks

“Well, it may hurt! But to have a very challenging life from age 40 when you get to Mars, and returning at 60, may be worth it having sacrificed for your country, or for humanity ... This is a concept that I don’t think very many people have come to grips with yet.”

Traveling to Mars is much more difficult than flying to the Moon in every way.

“Then we didn’t know,” Aldrin said.

There launch window is narrow. The trajectory and thrust have to be very exact. About half of the Mars missions have succeeded so far.

Buzz Aldrin Mars Promo

“You have to get it 100 percent: 95 percent, you don’t get to Mars. You don’t come back,” he says.

“No free return and no backup system, no alternate. I’m disturbed about that.”

Aldrin says that independent, short missions are doomed to fail.

“Probably the third time we get there, Congress or somebody will say ‘here, we know how to do that — lets spend that money over here ...’ And that will be it for Mars.”

Aldrin believes that high risks can be managed by sending mission components separately.

“You can have a year-and-a half tour of duty, a five year tour of duty, a seven-and-a-half ... and come back,” he says. “You’re sending as many as you’re bringing back.

"Are you disappointed you never got to fly to Mars?"

“No. See, we’d already flown,” he says.

MARS Series for Nat Geo

“The three of us (from Apollo 11) felt that being so fortunate to have come out with the mission and end up the first landing that we didn’t feel like flying another mission was fair to other guys. We’d be taking a potential mission away from them."

Aldrin hopes NASA accepts his "master plan" which is already working on the spacecraft and the rockets to launch astronauts to Mars by 2030. And he expects a Mars settlement by 2040, around the 70th anniversary of his Apollo 11 moon landing.

Aldrin also envisions using Mars moons, Deimos and Phobos, as stepping stones for astronauts. He doesn't like the label "one-way" and he imagines tours of duty, lasting up to 10 years.

See related article here:

Do you think we should colonize Mars?

We welcome all comments or questions.

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A.R. Arias, a Mars enthusiast, is the designer/developer for Terra Nova Board Games. His debut game, Millennium-Glory Beyond The Ages, and its companion short story, Girl With A Broken Heart, launches 9.11.2019.

Learn more at The Game Crafter Website

New Board Game Short Story - Girl With a Broken Heart - A Gamble or Not?

As you can see from the images below, it's no secret that the Millennium board game is female-centric. (No worries guys, there's plenty of testosterone to go around in the game.) Fortunately, the Me Too Movement is in full swing, however, my reason for featuring a female protagonist on the cover was not as altruistic as you might think.

To feminists, the male dog, ( Andrea's bull terrier, Apollo) might have another meaning to them. Hey, at least it's not a pig. Double meanings were not intentional.

I'll have to admit the female slant was a marketing ploy because even though 80% of the board game market is geared towards men, I thought I'd switch it up a bit just for kicks and giggles. It doesn't take a marketing guru to figure out that female-centric games are most likely to languish right out of the box, however, in recent years, more women are becoming part of board gaming communities than ever before. So there is a bit of momentum going on.

". . .this game could die in obscurity in the annals of female gamedom . . ."

My hope is that by the time this game and its companion book launches in mid 2019, female players (numbers) are either at their peak or steadily climbing. If they are not, which is entirely possible and most likely the case, then this game might die in obscurity in the annals of female gamedom, to put it professionally. Unless men grab the baton and reach for a cause of their own. (God forbid. I'll have to show Andrea in a bikini before that happens.)

Hey, no risk, no reward. That's what they say and I'm sticking to my guns on that one. Life is all about taking chances, and while I'm no high stakes gambler, I've been known to roll the dice against all odds before.

The Companion Story

In this case, I'm all-in with a female-centric game and book. So now you can judge me as a game designer, a marketing guru, and as a writer in one fell-swoop. It's a good thing this is not my first rodeo, people. While I'm no Jamie Stegmaier, and I'm certainly no Hemingway, I just might hold my own. (Not according to this post.)

No worries, folks. I'll be dead soon enough and no one will remember me anyway. So a word to young guns out there. Go for it while you can because you only live once. Not exactly Freudian advice, but you get the idea. No shame in that game. (I think I ran out of clichés.)

Here's a newsflash about clichés. They are clichés for a reason.

"Respect The Cliché!"

Okay, enough of all that.

Let's see if I can redeem myself and end this post professionally. Not sure about that because I've already had three Bacardi white rum Mojito's and working on another as we speak. Cheers, E.H.!

The point is that board games, in my view, need meaningful stories to help them along and "give them legs" as they say in the entertainment business. After all, what's a game without a good story to move it forward and a good backstory to give it texture and depth?

A boring game, that's what. The market is saturated with games like that.

Anybody up for more of those? I doubt it.

Without further ado, here's a short excerpt, (from the preface) from, Girl With A Broken Heart.

***

The Year 2157 – Austin, Texas

AT FIRST IT LOOKED LIKE MAGIC.

Or a mirage; but it felt like an earthquake. That's what I sensed it was, until I looked outside the window and thought I saw that the entire Austin skyline was falling. My mind must be playing tricks on me, Andrea thought.

I probably had too much to drink last night. For a minute, I thought a demolition crew was at work. And this mushroom cloud, blooming over the city was no morning fog either. In fact, a cloud of dust rumbling towards me, was surely fallout from a nuclear blast.

An explosion so enormous, that my mind could not grasp its magnitude. Jesus. My eyes were not deceiving me. I stared at the landscape and tried imagining the outline of buildings that stood there and imploded in slow motion only moments ago. But what I was seeing was real.

The Austin city skyline was no longer visible at the horizon.

It was there just seconds ago. Then right before my eyes, poof!
Everything crumbled and vaporized into the atmosphere.

***

This is all subject to more editing. I'll post the rest of the story soon. Still building out the middle and ending, which has to be better, greater than the beginning. By the middle of January, 2019, I'll reveal the complete story without spoilers. Stay tuned for that event!

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