Buzz Aldrin, the second man to walk on the Moon, dreams that humans will walk on Mars by 2040.
He proposes the next US president should use the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 Moon landing on July 20, 2019 to challenge the country to land humans on Mars within two decades.
"We should be doing something in addition to celebrating all the anniversaries, so the public understands what we did 50 years ago — and [so] the Congress people do, too. Because you know you can't do this on a shoestring," Aldrin told Tech Insider.
"But it won't be all Americans on that first lander," he continued. "I think there'll be some international crew."
Aldrin sees the US, Russia, Europe, China, and Japan as the leading space-exploring nations today, and says they'll all have to work together to land humans on Mars. It's no longer Russia vs. the US, but a global Space Race for all of humanity — and this time we have to all be on the same team.
It won't just take international collaboration to get to Mars, Aldrin said. It will also require a lot more money.
NASA funding peaked at 4.5% of the entire federal budget in 1966. Today, it hovers around 1%.
We'll need reusable spacecraft to reach the Red Planet, too. Companies like Elon Musk's SpaceX and Jeff Bezos' Blue Origins are leading the effort on that front.
Since it takes a few months to get to Mars, Aldrin sees the first missions as one-way trips. Those early settlers could be the first to establish new a civilization on another planet.
"It will be a particular place in history for the first crew that goes down and lands, because they have been dreaming about this for the last 10, 15, 20 years — maybe all their lives — of becoming a settler on Mars," he said.
"I think that sooner or later — and I hope it's sooner — we will establish a growing number of people (international crewmembers) on the surface of Mars ... Let's get all the nations together, soon."
