Noteworthy Quote: Leaving Humans on Other Planets

"These people have been trained and given the great historical value of being the first human beings in history to occupy another planet and people want to bring them back?...Let me ask those people who want to bring them back, what are you going to do with them back here on Earth that will in any way [justify] the billions and billions of dollars that have been invested in those human beings to put them on Mars?"

- Statement by former astronaut Buzz Aldrin discussing flying people to Mars (see London's Daily Mail) 

Footnote:  Maybe we should have left Buzz on the moon.  It was pretty expensive bringing him back.  

45th Moon Landing Anniversary

Forty-five years ago this very day the Apollo 11 crew landed on the Moon and astronaut Neil Armstrong stated "One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind." Astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin visited the Moon's surface for about 22 hours before returning the the command module, where astronaut Michael Collins was waiting for them. The picture above is pretty dramatic, yet the world first saw the mission on television via the poor-quality video shown below.  NASA has restored the video showing about two and a half hours "extravehicular activity."  This was a amazing day in history, and hopefully we will have many more space moments in the future.  We have not returned to the Moon since 1972.  It may be time to revisit the Moon as part of plans to move further out into the solar system.

33rd International Space Development Conference

If you want to learn more about the "colonization, development, and capitalization of space," the National Space Society (NSS) has a conference for you on May 14-18 in Los Angeles.  The NSS's 33rd International Space Development Conference will be held at the Sheraton Gateway Hotel.

The NSS invites members of the general public, space activists, scientists, engineers, educators, astronauts, aerospace industry leaders, and government officials to explore humanity's future in space. The conference will feature a number of speakers sharing their ideas about future space missions, including Space X CEO Elon Musk, Apollo 11 Astronaut Buzz Aldrin, Orbital Sciences VP Mike Pinkston, members of the Mercury MESSENGER Team, and many others. 

The conference will also have a Space Settlement Design Contest,which is an annual contest co-sponsored by the NSS and the NASA Ames Research Center.  Any student (up to age 18) from anywhere in the world can participate. Interested parties need to submit a paper relating to orbital settlements, with the contest rules stating "Settlements may not be on a planet or moon...Settlements must be permanent, relatively self-sufficient homes, not temporary work camps."

The contest is serious work.  A six member team from Cypress Bay High School Weston, Florida, won the context in 2013 with their 126 page paper Maui.  According to the winning paper's executive summary, 

...Maui tells a story, the story of how extraterrestrial colonies may grow and develop from ramshackle frontier towns to bustling cities. Maui is the narrative of mankind’s first permanent settlement in the Saturn system, orbiting the moon Titan.

Prior conferences and speaker presentations can be found here.  Past student contest winners back to 1994 can be found here.

Image Credit and more photo information:  http://space.mike-combs.com/gallery.htm