Your comments since the programme

The world needs the mineral resources in space, mankind will go after them eventually. The question is will it be done now when we have time to do the research to make the trip safely for the astronauts and the environment, or later when it will be done with something like an Orion launch vehicle? I vote for now.
Richard T. Ketchum, USA

Like many historic events, this will be eventually forgotten as a major achievement! Who glorifies, nowadays, the first sea journey around the World of Magellan? And the discovery of the Sea Route to India by Vasco da Gama? And the fall of geocentricism by the hands of Giordano Bruno, Galileo and Copernicus? All of these were small steps for the men who performed them but huge steps to mankind! Now it is time to look ahead and plan the next step! The foundations are there, now let's go to the next floor!
Bruno Silva, Portugal

Look back over the last 25-30 years around the world and try to find some true heroes. These guys were and are the last true heroes. This fact alone makes the Apollo story and truly remarkable.
Pat Beardmore, UK

If you want to find more resources for reducing poverty, take them from the military, not the space program. How much would it cost if an asteroid (even a small one) hit the earth? Money spent on space is an excellent investment!
Kevin Elliott, UK

The pursuit of knowledge and the exploration of our Universe is what life is about. It is what we humans do. Going to the Moon was just the first, and most important, step towards exploring our Solar System and Galaxy. The space programme is entirely justified - the benefits for humankind are incalculable. As a species we should stop wasting money and resources on military hardware and wars, and spend more on science, education, and preserving this precious planet of ours.
Wendy Goodwin, Australia

At age 13, the Apollo 11 landing was the most historic day in my life. I've lost none of the thrill when I see those grainy black and white TV pictures played over and over again. The technological advancements produced by the space program have benefited everyone. Imagine how much more we will gain by going to Mars. To sustain 12 people in a totally closed ecological system for 2 years would be remarkable. Imagine how such ultra-green recycling technologies could help us sustain life here on Earth.
Chris Huculak, England

Before we all go around playing Capt. Kirk Meets Darth Vader, wouldn't it be better to use the resources here on our only known life bearing planet?! Technology is advancing quicker than mankind so maybe it's time to stop awhile and take stock of where we are here on earth before we go gallivanting off to Mars.
Jonathan Lanz, Denmark

The assumption that if we explore space, we will neglect Earth is wrong. If you know you are moving house in 10 years, do you not cut the grass, not put the rubbish out? The amazing pictures that came back from the Mars landing re-kindled some of the excitement and love for exploration. We need to keep going. If we do not for 'expanding into the universe' reasons, then do it for the 'expanding our minds' reason.
Mark, UK

After all the effort and risk and funds this space travel has not made our existing Earth conditions better. We are destroying the planet, and are not in any position to build more empires only to fight and hurt each other on some other planet. No more!!
Dee Howell, USA

I was born the same day, within the hour of Neil Armstrong's epic landing. It's nice to know my birth day was a monumental day for mankind.
Satya, India

I find it incredible that some still believe the moon landing was a hoax. What kind of paranoid, anti-government thinking is that? Have some respect for the people that put their lives on the line in the name of progress.
Luke Leonard, USA

As a child I remember the Apollo 8 mission at Christmas. The astronauts' picture of the blue earth and the reading from Genesis is still a clear memory today 31 years on. I was allowed to watch as much of the Apollo program as I wanted because it was educational and a great achievement. I still remember the fuzzy TV images and "One small step". I hope that we will return in my lifetime. Perhaps the sceptics should remember that there is no such thing as useless knowledge and that as a species we have insatiable curiosity. But next time I suspect that the mission will be rather more internationally orientated, with representatives of many nations.
Andrew Fanner, UK

When they landed on the moon 30 years ago, generations like me haven't been born to this world. However, growing-up with ever ready heroes to relate to, makes us look at the space as the final frontier, the potential one that human should continue exploring. We're not bonded to this planet forever, sooner or later we have to expand human race to other part of this vast universe simply because we do have what it takes to conquer the universe.
Zainal, Malaysia

There are more people in the world who believe Apollo was faked purely for propaganda purposes during the 60's. The fact that there were supposedly 9 missions to the Moon in a space of 3 years, and yet they have gone 28 years with no return visit, only re-enforces peoples belief.
Sam Colby, UK

I was about 11 years old and it is my first indelible television moment....standing with hundreds of other school kids, crowded around a black and white TV, watching Armstrong step onto the Moon!!
But it is only now, in my 40's that I begin to appreciate the courage and ingenuity of the men who carried our dreams to the moon...in nothing more than a tin can. A truly epic feat.
Con Perakis, Australia

As a spacecraft engineer who knows, as many others in my industry know, that we could and should return to the Moon in a matter of a few years, I am incredibly frustrated by the need for political expediency that condemns us to be Earth-bound. Arthur C. Clarke's 2001 was time-framed very conservatively in his opinion, but it seems he may have been 50 years OVERLY optimistic.
Space will, with the benefit of hindsight from the next Millennium, be viewed as one of, if not THE, most important endeavours of modern times. Unfortunately, the governments who decide what we do, or do not do, lack Clarke's capability for vision. What a pity. The thirtieth anniversary of the Apollo moon landing dawns on an Earth drawn inward away from past glories.
Gareth Williams, Germany

I think that my generation (I'm 24) do not sum up as much enthusiasm as people did when Neil Armstrong landed on the moon. It now seems almost old-fashioned. However, I still find it exiting that on day we may be able to create a 'lunar base' on which we can work and play, just as if we were on earth. We must continue funding for such 'air-head' projects, otherwise excitement about the 'space-age' will just die out.
Karenza, England

Great job getting to the moon, but what the hell happened after that? Mankind took a step back.
Bill, USA

I just wish I could be here in a hundred or more year's time when perhaps mankind will travelling to endless worlds beyond our solar system. Can you imagine how incredible exciting and fascinating that will one day be? I envy our children's children but pray that man will not destroy himself before these opportunities become available. How I wish I could be here to see it. But I guess it would be some compensation if I live to see man walk on Mars.
J Ritchie, Australia

So do people still believe it really happened?
Alan McBride, N Ireland

In the less developed countries we are facing a huge gap in technology with respect to the more developed countries. Indeed this gap also comes in with respect to the wealth of the general population. What is considered a reasonable wage in the third world is often below the poverty line in the more developed countries. I feel that exploitation of resources in space may just bring in enough wealth that this might spread out enough to help the less developed countries.
Michael Hind, Zimbabwe

Dear Buzz,
It seems that the spirit of discovery that we all grew up in has been replaced by corporate domination. So thank you for the memories.
Neville Dempsey, Singapore

I just wanted to express the frustration I feel when I hear so many people denigrating the capacity of human beings to improve themselves. The knowledge and vision of those who have been to space, and of those who have put them there is a critical component of the education of our species.
Hans Rosenfeldt, USA

I listened to the live radio broadcast by Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin. I was listening in a tent during a canoe expedition to the West Coast of Scotland. It was a truly overwhelming moment. They actually did it. I was 17 at the time and for the previous 12 years my childhood was dominated by the space race. I designed space vehicles and my pals designed the chemical fuels. We made rockets out of jet pellets and made rocket boosters out of cigar cases. Our live crew were worms and slugs and spiders who must have endured multi-G forces as they fired out of our launcher and 20 metres into the air. We seriously believed that we would one day go to the moon and further.
If anyone had told John Glenn after the first earth Orbit by the US that he would go into space 30 odd years later he would never have guessed that the best they could offer was an earth orbit. Mars is next and I hope it will be a Scotsman who gives the speech!
David Cuthill, Scotland

Reaching for the stars is within the realm of human endeavours; just as saving the environment, seeking peace and ending world hunger. In each of these goals we have made astounding progress. Each of these goals are also interrelated. One cannot exist without the other. We have so much further to go but then, isn't that is what makes a goal worth striving for?
Paul Seitz, Hong Kong

Thirty years ago I was a seven year old watching an event that has stayed with me over the years. The first moon landing was a fantastic achievement for the three crew members of Apollo 11, for the thousands of people involved in the Apollo programme, for the citizens of the USA and all of the human race. The Apollo programme was a result of the Cold War and probably made the moon landing possible many years earlier than would have been the case otherwise.
With the Apollo 11 mission human exploration moved on to a new level of reaching beyond the constraints of the Earth but also followed in the footsteps of Earth bound explorers down the centuries. Whatever the arguments for and against this endeavour it gave small boy hope and optimism for the future. Thanks Buzz, Neil and Michael for your achievement.
Robert Cains, UK

The budget of the space program is not spent in space - it is spent in our economy on the ground on people advancing high tech. This relatively small investment has paid off 100 fold over the years. Computers and electronics have made many new industries including software engineering which has invigorated the American economy with endless high paying jobs. Only by having a strong broad economy can we tax it to have the money for social issues in general. Investment in the future is essential. For the future's sake we can not afford to be short sited.
Mark, USA

30 years ago this weekend, I like many millions of people followed the Apollo 11 astronauts every step of the way on their momentous voyage. Little did I know then that 20 years later I would be sitting in a geology laboratory at Durham University (UK) studying the Apollo 11 moon rocks through a microscope. It was a truly overwhelming experience. And now on the 30th anniversary, I am once again reliving the first moon landing. I haven't had a dry eye for days!!
Kathleen Shile, England

Having read earlier comments, I am quite surprised people think our future lies in escaping from Earth. I do agree that space travel is a very healthy development for mankind, but not as a means of escape. I believe it will allow us to grow (up?) and learn how to be more respectful to our mother-planet. How can people even consider moving elsewhere when we haven't even been able to take care of Earth?
I am not that pessimistic about the future, but agree that we need to grow up NOW and behave in a more responsible way as a species. Maybe then we could move on - and find other worlds? I know I would absolutely LOVE to! If I could, I would leave right now and experience the thrill of space travel! I believe we are now in the middle of accomplishing that giant leap...
Anuschka Smeekes, The Netherlands

Why design and use a reusable launch system? The Russians have been using and refining their rockets for 40 odd years and have managed to cheaply put up and supply a large space station for over a decade. When the launch system is mass produced it becomes cheaper over time. The Saturn 5 launch system should have been refined and upgraded to make it cheaper to produce and to be easier to launch. A reusable third stage could be designed if that would be cheaper and more flexible, but I think that a 'one shot' launcher where most of the payload remains in orbit makes more sense.
John Witts, UK

Your comments during the programme

Nine-year-old Shriran Janbunathn from Belgium puts his question to Buzz

Buzz Aldrin on not coming back: "We didn't concern ourselves about what other people might say if we had difficulties on the moon. We were there to concern ourselves about what we could to fix those difficulties. I remember being asked what would we do if the engine didn't start to lift us off the moon and I responded we would spend every minute possible trying to figure out ways to make it work. That was the purpose of having humans on board."

Might I suggest that (if looking at the planet from space is at all likely to give those that have that possibility a better idea about how fragile is our world) the first people that should be sent up as 'passengers' should perhaps be the politicians the industrialists and the mindlessly greedy seekers after the dream (illusion)!!!
Anthony J Faulder, Germany

Buzz Aldrin talks about plans to go to Mars

Buzz Aldrin on going to Mars: "I think a reasonable time could be fifty years from the time that we landed on the moon, or around 2020. But it's getting closer to that time and the closer we get without increasing our activities in that direction the more difficult it becomes to meet that kind of a deadline. I think we have a very critical opportunity of defining the next generation's space shuttle in the next few years. I don't think it will be done in the single stage to orbit, I don't think we're ready for that quite yet, technically or economically."

I believe that the space program is indispensable in furthering the education of mankind. As Buzz Aldrin indicated the program does not soak up the huge amounts of money that some people think. P.S. It seems to me that everyone is being a little confrontational about this issue. Some of the callers have been a bit short-sighted and aggressive but Dr Aldrin is also reacting strongly as well. Confrontation will only lead to argument. Let the stats speak Buzz!!
Chris Myles, Australia

Sonam Norbu, Bhutan: "We have an obligation to find out as much as possible about the universe."

Dear Buzz, I would first like to say how interesting it is to listen to you. Contrary to what some callers have said, I think that it is human nature to explore and endeavour.
Your friend, John William Walsh

Buzz, the view of the Earth from the Moon has had a profound effect on humanity. It made us realise the fragility of the Earth and the immensity of the Universe. This fragility was emphasised when Comet shoemaker-levy slammed into Jupiter punching holes larger than the Earth into the atmosphere. Surely this showed that it is essential that we do not put all our eggs in one basket and that exploration of the solar system is vital rather than an option.
Tim Abernethy, England

What danger are they talking about? Here in Kharkov (Ukraine) millions of people are burning down rubbish (plastics, rubber, texture etc.) just in the streets. They absolutely don't care about environment. And when they talk about the evil of space exploration it makes me laugh!
Alex, Ukraine

Talking about the environment, I think that weather you go to the beach, the forest, or the moon I think that man should leave the surrounds the same as we found them. But as I watch so many documentaries, movies and film clips what about all the refuse left on the moon? Why didn't you bring the refuse back with you? From what I gather the astronauts were littering the moon. Or am I wrong did you indeed bring the used equipment back with you?
James D. Rapp, Cyprus

Natasha from Uganda asks Buzz about the environmental implications of space exploration

Buzz Aldrin on the environment: "There's not a single person I know who's been into space that wants to diminish our opportunities to clean up things that people are irresponsible about. Why is it that the environmentalists want to take away the support for the space programme? We're not interested in taking away the support for what you're trying to do. We're very much in favour of all the environmental measures that are going on."

Hello Buzz. I was only 9 months old when you walked on the moon so I don't remember it! All these years later I am fascinated about those Apollo years and watch all the TV documentaries on those Apollo missions.
Christopher Myatt, England

I would like to add a very big thank-you to Buzz, Neil & Michael for what they did 30 years ago. It is the most over-whelmingly fantastic event of our life time. Thank you for your bravery and for making this such a brilliant time to be alive.
Jan, England

I think every cent ever spent on the space program was worth it. I also think we should go to Mars asap.
Blair Robertson, Australia

BBC Science Correspondent, Dr David Whitehouse puts a question to Buzz

Buzz Aldrin on being told by the Nasa Administrator that if the mission was unsuccessful the same crew would go back and try again: "I think we all smiled and said to ourselves, that's very nice of you sir, I hope you don't have to exercise that option."

I too remember watching Neil, Buzz and Mike going to the moon especially Neil and Buzz setting foot on the moon. This as Buzz once said changed the lives of us here back on earth for good.
Shane Woods, England

I am 17 and although I had not yet been born during Apollo missions, I believe that the time of the Moon landings were a significant moment of human evolution. It is a shame that since that time we have not ventured further to other planets. If within 12 years Man can progress from sending the first satellite into space to sending humans to the Moon, why is it not possible that within the 30 years after, we cannot do more? In a sense it is unfair for my generation that we don't have any "goal" in space to look forward to. Setting a deadline - as Kennedy did in the 60s - for a mission to Mars would be so inspirational.
Rue Roy, UK

I think before we go to Mars that a small community should be set up on the moon that allows to see how to colonise a planet. If we go too fast and over-reach ourselves the falling from the tree will be hard. I was always told reach for the moon but over-stretch as far as your arm will reach for over balancing you will fall_A flight to Mars will achieve little if we can't begin colonising the planet.
Tim Cook, UK

Paul, Poland: "Is it true that your father wanted to influence people at Nasa to make you the first man on the moon?"

Buzz Aldrin on his father: "He was concerned that there was not an ability to rescue people once they lifted off and headed towards the moon. There was no other space ship that could be sent after them. I think a lot of people would have maybe felt the same way, but some people more so because their son was involved in it."

We hear strange things about experiments being done to produce crystals in a zero gravity situation with possible pharmaceutical benefits, yet cancer and aids research is under-funded, and no doubt the vehicles that allow a handful of people to admire a fantastic view of the earth from beyond have had a role in eroding the ozone layer. What, in truth is the benefit of all this madness?
Alan Feltus, in Italy

I think that this is the one event that nearly everyone has agreed on as being great.
Shaun Sanderson, Scotland

Robert, New Zealand: "Was the famous first bootprint ever photographed?"

Buzz Aldrin on that first bootprint: "I photographed my bootprint shortly after I had access to the camera because I'd just remarked to myself how unusual that surface is, such a fine powdery consistency and doesn't it make remarkable footprints. So I photographed a piece of the lunar soil in front of me before I put my foot on it, then I made a bootprint and I photographed that."

Pure research is always a hard sell, as politicians and corporate leaders, and even the researchers themselves must consider short-term fiscal realities. But the fact that, a mere 30 years after the establishment of "Tranquility Base", we can hold a forum like this, instantly, world wide, demonstrates the amazing distance we've come - and much of the credit goes to the space programme.
Chris Brown-Syed, Canada & USA

Well done, Buzz! Go ahead and conquer Mars, and a base on the Moon would be OK too. I have been a Space fan since my childhood and watched the whole history of space exploration from the very beginning (1957 - ...........)
Alex, Ukraine

Your comments before we went ON AIR

Manned space travel to places such as the moon has little if not no benefit to humanity, just as going to the park has no benefits for humanity. However, the benefits gained from getting there are incredible. The development of the technology and training has given us, as discussed before, many advances before their time. It is human nature to be inquisitive about our surroundings. So deep is this need, that many disregard it as they do the need for children to play to explore. The human race needs to feel it's own progression, and the best way for us to do this is to reach out to the stars. Everybody's got to have a dream.
Chris Salmon, UK

To get those men to the moon - and safely back - was an outstanding achievement by all concerned, and must be looked back on as one of this particular civilisation's greatest hours. To go further? From what I can gather the great physical limit of the universe - the speed of light - and the fact that we are stuck on the edge of our galaxy will probably mean that we are probably just too far away from any other space going types that are out there. It will be an awfully long time before we are part of any great space community, and there must be the possibility of one in the 'crowded' centre of the Milky Way. One point for the near future: why can't we develop rocket and launch technology to the point where it is safe enough to send our dangerous (such as radioactive) waste off to burn up in the Sun? Fossil fuel supplies will run out sooner or later and what will we do then?
Andy Golborne, UK

We have a simple choice to make. Does our species want to avoid extinction when the sun goes nova (assuming we have not already wiped ourselves out)? We better have a reliable means of leaving this solar system. Of course, given the short sighted nature of our species - who knows ?
Jeffrey Cassano, USA

Why should people be forced to stay on Earth? Earth is just a cradle.
Kevin Elliott, UK

A couple of years ago I visited the Kennedy Space Centre and looked inside a Lunar Descent Module. I was absolutely flabbergasted at the low-tech appearance of the controls and instrumentation. It did not look too much different from a World War II bomber flight deck to me. How courageous the Apollo astronauts were! I sat up all night watching when Apollo 11 landed on the moon and I can clearly remember going outside to look at the moon and to be awe-struck to think that as I looked human beings were on its surface. Just think what we could do today, with modern technology and knowledge, if we stopped killing each other, stopped our endless worrying about material wealth and concentrated all our attention outwards, where our destiny must surely lie. Perhaps that might bring us closer to God again?
Brian Webb, UK

After reading and listening to the ongoing debate about the relevance of space exploration, I find myself both delighted by the enthusiastic attitudes towards space travel, and startled by the number of enthusiasts whose opinions seem to be fuelled by escapist thinking. Space exploration is vital in improving the quality of life on earth. For example, the psychological effects that pictures of earth from space had on people helped to fuel the environmental movement of the 60's and 70's. Feeling the need to evacuate our "already destroyed" planet because it's "our only hope" does not guarantee future responsible behaviours here on earth or in space. It's a scary thought that humans may one day bounce from planet to planet, devastating each environment that they inhabit with the idea that the universe is "big"(meaning that we have enough places to go), and that we have the technology to move if we have to. Is mankind really thinking ahead in such scenarios? Space exploration fuels so many magnificent questions and helps us learn more about who we are and what role we play in the cosmos. I completely back space travel, as long as the correct motives are in place.
Camille Davila, USA