The first astronauts to walk on the moon want President Barack Obama to aim for a new destination: Mars. In one of their few joint public appearances, the crew of Apollo 11 spoke on the eve of the 40th anniversary of man's first landing on the moon, but didn't get soggy with nostalgia. They instead spoke about the future and the more distant past. Sunday night, a packed crowd at the Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum didn't get the intimate details of the Eagle's landing on the moon with little fuel left, or what the moon looked like, or what it felt like to be there. They got second man on the moon Buzz Aldrin's pitch for Mars. He said the best way to honor the Apollo astronauts “is to follow in our footsteps; to boldly go again on a new mission of exploration.” First man on the moon Neil Armstrong only discussed Apollo 11 for about 11 seconds. Apollo 11 command module pilot Michael Collins, who circled the moon alone while Armstrong and Aldrin walked on it, said the moon was not interesting, but Mars is. “Sometimes I think I flew to the wrong place. Mars was always my favorite as a kid and it still is today,” Collins said. “I'd like to see Mars become the focus, just as John F. Kennedy focused on the moon.” The man who founded and directed Mission Control Houston, Christopher Kraft Jr., also jumped on the go-somewhere-new, do-something-different bandwagon. “What we need is new technology; we have not had that since Apollo,” Kraft said as part of the lecture at the Smithsonian. Aldrin presented an elaborate slide detailing how to make a quick visit to the moon a stepping stone to visits to the Martian moon Phobos, Mars itself, and even some asteroids like Apophis that may someday hit Earth. Aldrin said he and Armstrong landed on the moon 66 years after the Wright brothers first flew an airplane. What he would like would be for humanity to land on Mars 66 years after his flight. That would be 2035.”
