Colonization of Mars of sending a person to Mars in 11 or 12 years". Richard Branson, in his lifetime, is "determined to be a part of starting a population on Mars. I think it is absolutely realistic. It will happen... I think over the next 20 years, we will take literally hundreds of thousands of people to space and that will give us the financial resources to do even bigger things". In June 2013, Buzz Aldrin, American engineer and former astronaut, and the second person to walk on the Moon, wrote an opinion, published in "The New York Times", supporting a human mission
Buzz Aldrin fell to Aldrin to complete Gemini's EVA goals. NASA formed a committee to give him a better chance of success. It dropped the test of the Air Force's astronaut maneuvering unit (AMU) test that had given Gordon trouble on Gemini 11 so Aldrin could focus on EVA. NASA revamped the training program, opting for underwater training over parabolic flight. Aircraft flying a parabolic trajectory had given astronauts an experience of weightlessness in training, but the delay between parabolae imposed a rest period. It also encouraged performing tasks quickly, whereas in space they had to be done slowly and deliberately. Training