Apollo astronaut Buzz Aldrin has revealed that legendary physicist Stephen Hawking wanted humans to colonize in the moon before beginning the manned Mars mission. The former astronaut made this statement while talking at the Starmus Festival in Zurich. Aldrin attended the event to receive the Stephen Hawking Medal for Lifetime Achievement.
"I was in his office and I had been anxious that we should make a continuous orbit between Earth and Mars. He said, in that computerized voice of his, 'colonize the Moon first' and I realized that there are so many things we need to do before we send people to Mars and the Moon is absolutely the best place to do that," said Buzz Aldrin, Daily Star reports.
It should be noted that Stephen Hawking, in his final book, 'Brief Answers to the Big Questions' had predicted that humans will eventually start living in space, as earth will become inhabitable in the future.
The revelation from Buzz Aldrin comes at a time when NASA is busy preparing for their upcoming lunar mission that aimed to land humans on earth's natural satellite u 2024. After landing on the moon in 2024, NASA will start their preparations to land humans on Mars in 2033.
However, several space experts believe that NASA may not achieve these goals within the stipulated deadline. As per these experts, NASA has not succeeded in presenting a plausible action-plan to achieve the moon landing, and there are also several other issues regarding funding. If the United States space agency fails to address these issues, the moon mission may get delayed to another couple of years.
In the meantime, private space companies like SpaceX led by Elon Musk are also planning to take humans to Mars. A few months back, Elon Musk had revealed that the government that will be formed on Mars after human colonization will be based on directed democracy.
