It's been decades since they set foot on the moon, but the pioneers of the Apollo programme remain committed to exploring space with the goal of sending a human to Mars, according to dpa. Seven astronauts from the Apollo programme talked with journalists Monday to mark the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 landing on the moon. Events later would include a celebration at the National Air and Space Museum and a meeting at the White House. Many of the retired astronauts, now in their 70s and 80s, said they were disappointed that NASA has not returned to the moon and ventured even further afield to Mars. "I don't think there was a soul in the astronaut office back in the 1960s that wouldn't have thought we'd be on (Mars) by the year 2000," said Walt Cunningham, the pilot of Apollo 7. But achieving that goal will take a commitment by the US government and must go beyond the current goal of returning to the moon by 2020. While many of the men would like to see a return to the moon for further exploration and a jumping off point for Mars, there is at least one prominent dissenter. Buzz Aldrin, who set foot on the moon along with Neil Armstrong for the first time on July 20, 1969, said he believes it is a waste of resources to return to the moon. He stressed that NASA would be better served by focussing only on Mars rather than spending billions of dollars on the moon, where conditions are different and may not even prepare astronauts for the Red Planet. "To me exploration is going someplace you haven't been before," Aldrin said.
