Just as appropriate today, with NASA turning its attention back to the Moon, as it was eight years ago.
“The agency’s current Vision for Space Exploration will waste decades and hundreds of billions of dollars trying to reach the Moon by 2020—a glorified rehash of what we did 40 years ago. Instead of a steppingstone to Mars, NASA’s current lunar plan is a detour. It will derail our Mars effort, siphoning off money and engineering talent for the next two decades. If we aspire to a long-term human presence on Mars—and I believe that should be our overarching goal for the foreseeable future—we must drastically change our focus.”
-Buzz Aldrin (Popular Mechanics interview, January 5, 2010)