Buzz Aldrin wants to build his own colony on Mars

A former NASA astronaut and one of the first men on the moon wants to colonize Mars within the next 25 years, and he’s joining forces with scientists at the Florida Institute of Technology in an attempt to make that a reality, as various media outlets reported on Friday.

According to the Associated Press (AP), 85-year-old Apollo 11 crewmember Buzz Aldrin said that he has “a master plan” to create a human outpost on the Red Planet by 2039 – which happens to be the 70th anniversary of his historic voyage to the moon. However, he admitted that the time frame for the proposed mission was “adjustable.”

So what is this master plan? Aldrin proposed using the moons Phobos and Deimos as a “stepping stone” of sorts to make it to the surface of Mars, the AP said. He said that he disliked the concept of “one-way” trips (such as those proposed by the Mars One project), adding that he envisioned a typical tour-of-duty on Mars as lasting 10 years before astronauts were ferried back to Earth.

Research to take place at the new Buzz Aldrin Space Institute

“The Pilgrims on the Mayflower came here to live and stay,” Aldrin explained. “They didn’t wait around Plymouth Rock for the return trip, and neither will people building up a population and a settlement” on Mars. The project has long been a passion for Aldrin, who initially devised the concept of a round-trip Earth-to-Mars spacecraft system in 1985, said Gizmodo.

Aldrin, who will also serve as a research professor of aeronautics and a senior faculty adviser for the soon-to-be-open Buzz Aldrin Space Institute and FIT, told reporters that he was “thrilled to be partnering with FIT,” and that while he was “proud” of all that he accomplished as a part of NASA, he wanted to be remembered “more for my contributions to the future.”

In a statement, FIT said that it would be supporting the development of lunar resources in order to support a potential Mars settlement, primarily through Aldrin’s concept of progressive flights to asteroids, the moons of Mars, and finally to the surface of the Red Planet itself. Aldrin joins a pair of other ex-NASA astronauts, Winston Scott and Sam Durrance, on the FIT faculty.

“Florida Tech has long been at the forefront of exploration,” Florida Tech President and CEO Anthony J. Catanese said in a statement. “Having Dr. Aldrin build this new initiative at Florida Tech is indeed an honor. We look forward to meaningful collaboration as humankind’s new vision for space unfolds.”

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Pictured is an image of the Martian sunset taken by the Spirit rover. Credit: NASA