Buzz Aldrin Discusses Man's 'Return' to Space
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Aboard the Russian space station Mir, they are celebrating a successful and unprecedented spacewalk this morning. The 14-year-old station is currently occupied by a pair of cosmonauts who are paid by a private corporation in the Netherlands. MirCorp. has leased the station and hopes to market it as a destination for tourists, among other things. Cosmonauts Sergei Zalyotin and Alexander Kaleri spent about five hours outside the station, the first privately funded spacewalk ever. They inspected some equipment and tested an experimental glue designed to seal leaks. A fictional crew of the space shuttle Columbia might have liked to have some of the glue on board. In the newly released novel, "The Return," Columbia is struck by a micro meteoroid, killing two crewmembers and forcing a crash landing of the shuttle -- that's just for starters. The co-author of "The Return" is none other than Buzz Aldrin, a man who flew to the surface of the man nearly 31 years ago and has spent much of his time since promoting commercialization of space travel. Buzz, good to see you, sir.</s>BUZZ ALDRIN, CO-AUTHOR, "THE RETURN": Thank, good to be with you, as usual, Miles.</s>O'BRIEN: All right, give us an idea -- a novel. This is your second novel. What's gotten you into fiction? You've written several nonfiction biographical-type books. What's gotten you into fiction?</s>ALDRIN: Well, I think the purpose is to open the eyes of the public and to educate them about the reality of things. My first novel was science fiction and it involved interstellar travel, but it really was such an epic that is started and involved return to the moon, some tourism in space, going to Mars. But then, of course, it involved fictitious aliens coming here in a flashback 9,000 years ago, and it eventually involved an interstellar flight from Earth to Alpha Centauri. And it's really very realistic and it should be in a movie. But because it didn't quite get there, John Barnes and I decided to embark on "The Return," which is the shortened title of "The Return of the Mars Four," which is four people who grew up -- four youngsters, teenagers, who grew up during the Apollo years.</s>O'BRIEN: All right, hopefully they're listening in Hollywood. I know it's kind of early out there, but hopefully they're listening. What's interesting about this book to me is that some of this is thinly disguised fiction. For example, one of the people -- one of the casualties on board Columbia is a very famous NBA superstar who's initials are "M.J." And also, the group which is launching this particular mission is ShareSpace, which you're involved with, a real group.</s>ALDRIN: Well, some...</s>O'BRIEN: What were you trying to prove...</s>ALDRIN: Some things are fictionalized and some of them are actual. We didn't use the names of the major aerospace companies, but we -- they're very thinly disguised -- Republic Right and Curtis, and instead of the Skunk Works, Scorpion Shack -- but we do develop four characters who come together and support each other and have sort of a Caine mutiny of space because they defend lawsuits against ShareSpace and a former astronaut, Scott Blackstone, who's sort of the major hero. And his ex-wife comes to his -- who's a liberal attorney, comes to his defense.</s>O'BRIEN: So it's an interesting plot, and I'm curious how you came up with it.</s>ALDRIN: Well, John and I initially started writing something about Mars. But then there turned out to be so many different somewhat hokey movies about Mars that we decided not to try and compete with that. So we felt -- or I felt the most important thing was to introduce the shuttle flying citizen observers or citizen explorers, a journalist first then maybe a game show winner, and then the coup de grace, which is Michael James, the retired NBA basketball star who just wows the public. And, you know, when he retired, when the real fictitious character retired, I couldn't think of anyone who would have a greater impact on the world at large and the young people in particular then if we were to fly somebody like that in the shuttle. We might have to get extra-large flight suits, though.</s>O'BRIEN: Might just have to do that. I was sort of disappointed that the first journalist wasn't the CNN space correspondent. But let's leave that aside for the moment. I'm curious, how -- your efforts, your overall efforts to commercialize space, have been slow in coming, quite frankly...</s>ALDRIN: Yes, they really have...</s>O'BRIEN: ... Why is that?</s>ALDRIN: Well, we've been obsessed with a shuttle that hasn't quite lived up to its expectations in terms of cost and flight rate and delivery. We've been sort of delayed by overestimating the ability to put up a space station with a shuttle instead of the way we put up the first space station, Skylab, with the heavy launch vehicle. That's what I think we should do in the future, and I hope the defendants of the present ISS don't resent the idea of putting up a core stage ET as the large volume with a payload and putting it up with reusable boosters and having a habitat essentially with one launch. Then we could have two parts of it, so some artificial gravity. But pioneer tourism, I've tried to develop about a five-phase program with each phase taking about four years -- coincidentally, that's the presidential tour -- so maybe we could implement this, but we start with a reusable first stage and a few other things and a master plan, and we end up with phase five in about 20 years going to Mars. But in between, of course we have a new shuttle, tourism in space, resorts and initial return to the moon, and then mature return to the moon. All these five different phases I think can be integrated into a study that right now Shared Space is trying to embark on. At the same time, Starcraft Boosters, my reusable first-stage company is trying to convince NASA that we really have the initial start of reusability that leads to much more flexibility than a VentureStar, an X-33 which we really don't think is going to be all that successful.</s>O'BRIEN: Now, Buzz, a lot of what you mention there is very ambitious...</s>ALDRIN: Yes.</s>O'BRIEN: ... and I do not detect, either from the political infrastructure or just the general public, the desire to fund a lot of these things. And, after all, the government does have to be involved, especially if you're talking about returning to the moon. Do you detect...</s>ALDRIN: Well, yes, you're right.</s>O'BRIEN: Why is that? Why is there less interest in doing these sorts of things in space these days?</s>ALDRIN: Well, because I think NASA has taken the position that from now everything ought to be done by the private sector, and the private sector just can't develop the investment money that's needed to do the things that NASA wants to do. It really has to be a partnership, and the partnership has to be wound around NASA's needs for eventual progressive exploration, which is heavy lift, and the private sector's needs for a high flight rate, adventure travel and resorts in space. And our space architecture tries to develop that in this five-phase program. And you can change direction as you go along, but you make a commitment and you understand -- you lay the groundwork with one phase for the next phase.</s>O'BRIEN: All right, if you have questions for Buzz Aldrin, you can talk with him online next week. You can join him for a live chat at CNN.com Tuesday afternoon, that's 4:30 Eastern time. Buzz, you ready to take all those curve balls from the general public there.</s>ALDRIN: Yes -- can you see this?</s>O'BRIEN: Yes, well, let's pout it on the air -- Liz. There you go, yes.</s>ALDRIN: All right, this is an adaptation of a Starcraft booster, but what it really is is the rescue mission that's dealt with in the book, "The Return," where the three -- group of the Mars Four get together and fly up to rescue people at the space station because a growing conflict between India ad Pakistan has resulted in a detonation of a nuclear device, which blinds a lot of satellites and strands people at the space station. Now if that isn't geared for Hollywood, I don't know what is.</s>O'BRIEN: All right, wake up, Hollywood. And if you want to find out more about Buzz Aldrin, we invite you to check out his Web site at -- where else? -- buzzaldrin.com. Buzz, you are the busiest former astronaut I know. It's always a pleasure to catch up with you. We hope to see you soon.</s>ALDRIN: Did you get our millennium card?</s>O'BRIEN: We've got it all. We've got it all, Buzz. Thank you very much. Have a good day. We'll see you later.</s>ALDRIN: OK, bye-bye.