Apollo astronaut Buzz Aldrin urges US to land on Mars

Buzz wants the US to go to Mars

NASA should focus on sending a man to Mars and helping other nations travel in space, Apollo astronaut Buzz Aldrin says.

Aldrin, who was the second man to set foot on the moon after Neil Armstrong, said the US space agency needed to stop concentrating on simply developing new rockets and turn its attention to visiting the neighbouring planet.

"I think our resources should ... be on a pathway that can lead us to Mars," he said.

Aldrin added that when the Apollo 11 crew returned from their mission and began touring the world, they realised the sense of achievement did not belong only to them.

"We spoke to many people in different countries and they said, 'We did it'," said Aldrin. "These quests to space are capable of unifying people to see the successes of the human race."

"I think the moon needs to be visited by nations with space programs that have not realised that point yet," he said.

"(The US) can help them do that, with our experience."

The 79-year-old recently opened an account on the social networking site Twitter. He currently has more than 3000 followers.

When asked what he would have tweeted to the world after walking on the moon, Aldrin smiled and said, "I can't wait to get home."

Great vision, Buzz. Now, would you mind telling us the truth for once?

Why would he state that the US can help other nations visit the moon, when they're stumbling about returning there, to this day?

I wonder if Buzz knows what might be on Mars?

Right on Buzz. The more countries get up there independently, the more data we get to analyze for ourselves back here. That only encourages open sharing of new information found and makes it much harder to keep the lid on things that might be held as private knowledge by a single, powerful holder (NASA or the US Government?) of that information...if there is any information being kept secret...