A Quote by Rick Tumlinson

I want the government to focus on the stuff we cannot yet do, like beginning to learn how we can live in space long enough to go to Mars or how to build and operate human communities on the Moon and Mars.
I don't go along with going to Moon first to build a launch pad to go to Mars. We should go to Mars from Earth orbit. We have already been to the Moon; we've already practiced.
We should go to the moon and prepare a base to fire a rocket off to Mars and then go to Mars and colonize Mars. Then when we do that, we will live forever.
I know enough about the moon to know how unpleasant and inhospitable it is. . . . I know enough about Mars to know that you can't live there, you can't settle it. Mars and the moon are two ugly islands. So then, you say, what's the point of going to them? The point is to be able to say I've been there, I've set foot on them, and I can go further to look for beautiful islands.
By refocusing our space program on Mars for America's future, we can restore the sense of wonder and adventure in space exploration that we knew in the summer of 1969. We won the moon race; now it's time for us to live and work on Mars, first on its moons and then on its surface.
I think we need to move to the moons of Mars and learn how to control robots that are on the surface. It's not the impatient way of getting there, but Mars has been there a long time.
People say, oh we just need charismatic leaders to continue on to Mars. Now we've gone to the moon, of course Mars is next. No. Mars was never, of course, next. It is next if you think we went to the moon because we're explorers, but if you know we went to the moon because we were at war then we're never going to Mars. There's no military reason to do it, to justify the expenditure.
People keep talking about how we have to go to Mars. We may want to go to Mars sometime.
I want to know: How does a space suit on Mars work? Show me how it is pressurized, and how it is cooled. What's the glove design? None of that stuff can be bought off the rack. It does not exist. You can't just go to SpaceMart and buy those things.
Mars is a long ways away. The moon is only 240,000 miles, but Mars is in the millions. It's too risky without spending more time going to the moon.
We want to build colonies on the Moon, Mars, the Moons of other planets, and even nearby asteroids. We want to make space tourism and commerce routine.
To send humans back to the moon would not be advancing. It would be more than 50 years after the first moon landing when we got there, and we'd probably be welcomed by the Chinese. But we should return to the moon without astronauts and build, with robots, an international lunar base, so that we know how to build a base on Mars robotically.
I don't want to go into space because of war. I think we would if it was triggered. If China said they want to put military bases on Mars, we'd be at Mars in two years. That would be quick. I don't want that to be the reason.
Long-term, I see robotics prevailing on the moon. . . . The most important decision we'll have to make about space travel is whether to commit to a permanent human presence on Mars. Without it, we'll never be a true space-faring people.
Well I DO want to go up into space, but more than that, I'm dissatisfied with the fact that humans have only gone to the moon. I want to go to Mars! I want to eventually go beyond the solar system!
I'd love to do something like put a piece of moon rock on Mars and a piece of Mars on the moon, a sort of reverse archaeology.
I think my career will end too early for me to go to Mars, though I might be involved in preparing the next generation to go. I'd love to explore Mars, but, ultimately, it's kind of a crappy planet. The thing is, Mars One people would never go outside without a spacesuit ever again. You're going to live in a tin can. Space stations are noisy; it's like living inside a computer with the fan on all the time. You're never going to smell grass or trees. It's just never going to be anything like Earth. You're never going to swim. You're giving up so much.
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