Buzz Aldrin visits Purdue campus to discuss colonizing Mars
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. (WLFI) – A world-famous astronaut was at Purdue for a discussion on colonizing Mars within the next century.
Buzz Aldrin sat front row Tuesday as a group of 25 aeronautical and astronautical engineering students presented results of a study called Project Destiny. It stems from Space-X founder Elon Musk’s vision to transport 1 million people in reusable spaceships. Students looked at factors including safety, practicality and cost, which is about $2 million per colonist.
Project Manager Blair Francis said at this point, the cost of a ticket is a bit too high.
“It is much higher than what Elon Musk originally wanted. He wanted a normal person to be able to save up money and use $200,000 to fly towards Mars,” said Francis. “That might be possible, but not with one-million people arriving within 100 years. The prices went up.”
Francis said the project stretched his imagination.
“Normally, as engineers, we look at systems or inputs and outputs. Well, this had a lot of human problems. We had to focus not just on how much heat is moving around or how much fuel do we need, as much as it is, are people going to be comfortable?” Francis said.
After the presentation, Aldrin gave his expert opinion on how to reduce cost, but he agrees much more research needs to be done.