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 in their honor in New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles. An official state dinner that evening in Los Angeles celebrated the flight. President Richard Nixon honored each of them with a presentation of the Presidential Medal of Freedom. This was the beginning of a 45-day "Giant Leap" tour that brought the astronauts to 25 foreign countries and included visits with prominent leaders such as Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom. On September 16, 1969, the astronauts addressed a joint session of Congress. With the Apollo Program coming to an end, Aldrin saw few prospects at NASA, and decided to