Neil Armstrong has urged a return to the moon to train for missions to Mars as the US contemplates the future of its space program following the end of the shuttle era.
The first man to walk on the moon is scheduled to address the US Congress on new directions for NASA in the coming weeks.
He has previously criticized US President Barack Obama for being “poorly advised” on space matters and said it was “well known to all that the American space program is in some chaos at the present time, some disarray.”
“There are multiple opinions on which goals should be the most important and the most pressing,” he told a function in Sydney late on Wednesday.
The US shuttle program came to an end last month with the Atlantis cruising home for a final time.
Critics have assailed NASA because there is no next-generation human space flight mission to replace the shuttle program.
Now 81, Armstrong said the agency had become a “shuttlecock” for the “war of words” between the executive, legislative and congressional arms of US government.
“It’s my belief, given time and careful thought and reasoning, we will eventually reach the right goal. I just hope we do it fairly quickly,” he said.
The normally private and reserved space veteran said Mars should be the next frontier for exploration, but urged more missions to the moon as the vital next step.
“I do favor going to Mars, but I believe it is both too difficult and too expensive with the technology we have available at the current time,” he said. “I favor returning to the moon. We made six landings there and explored areas as small as a city lot, and perhaps as large as a small town. That leaves us some 14 million square miles [36,260,000km2] that we have not explored.”
Armstrong said working on the moon would allow scientists to practice “a lot of the things that you need to do when you are going further out in the solar system,” while maintaining relatively close contact with Mission Control.
Communication is the major problem for trips to Mars, he added, with the relay of a message between Earth and Mars delayed by about 20 minutes.
Yemen’s separatist leader has vowed to keep working for an independent state in the country’s south, in his first social media post since he disappeared earlier this month after his group briefly seized swathes of territory. Aidarous al-Zubaidi’s United Arab Emirates (UAE)-backed Southern Transitional Council (STC) forces last month captured two Yemeni provinces in an offensive that was rolled back by Saudi strikes and Riyadh’s allied forces on the ground. Al-Zubaidi then disappeared after he failed to board a flight to Riyadh for talks earlier this month, with Saudi Arabia accusing him of fleeing to Abu Dhabi, while supporters insisted he was
The Chinese Embassy in Manila yesterday said it has filed a diplomatic protest against a Philippine Coast Guard spokesman over a social media post that included cartoonish images of Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平). Philippine Coast Guard spokesman Jay Tarriela and an embassy official had been trading barbs since last week over issues concerning the disputed South China Sea. The crucial waterway, which Beijing claims historic rights to despite an international ruling that its assertion has no legal basis, has been the site of repeated clashes between Chinese and Philippine vessels. Tarriela’s Facebook post on Wednesday included a photo of him giving a
Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa on Sunday announced a deal with the chief of Kurdish-led forces that includes a ceasefire, after government troops advanced across Kurdish-held areas of the country’s north and east. Syrian Kurdish leader Mazloum Abdi said he had agreed to the deal to avoid a broader war. He made the decision after deadly clashes in the Syrian city of Raqa on Sunday between Kurdish-led forces and local fighters loyal to Damascus, and fighting this month between the Kurds and government forces. The agreement would also see the Kurdish administration and forces integrate into the state after months of stalled negotiations on
‘SHOCK TACTIC’: The dismissal of Yang mirrors past cases such as Jang Song-thaek, Kim’s uncle, who was executed after being accused of plotting to overthrow his nephew North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has fired his vice premier, compared him to a goat and railed against “incompetent” officials, state media reported yesterday, in a rare and very public broadside against apparatchiks at the opening of a critical factory. Vice Premier Yang Sung-ho was sacked “on the spot,” the state-run Korean Central News Agency said, in a speech in which Kim attacked “irresponsible, rude and incompetent leading officials.” “Please, comrade vice premier, resign by yourself when you can do it on your own before it is too late,” Kim reportedly said. “He is ineligible for an important duty. Put simply, it was
RSS