Virtual Reality Space Travel: Mars Mission Experience Unveiled By Buzz Aldrin

Buzz Aldrin’s already been to the moon. His next mission? Getting humans to Mars. The 87-year-old astronaut, and second man ever to walk on the moon, recently debuted a virtual reality Mars experience in hopes of making progress toward an actual trip to the Red Planet.

Aldrin unveiled his “Cycling Pathways to Mars” Tuesday at the South by Southwest festival in Austin. The experience is a helmet-less, ten-minute long tour in which a 3D hologram of the astronaut takes users on a trip to Mars and the moon.

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“The moon landing was a monumental achievement for humanity,” the Gemini 12 and Apollo 11 veteran told USA Today. “But there’s no greater mission than mankind’s journey to Mars.”

Aldrin has long argued that NASA should do everything in its power to make it to Mars as soon as humanly possible, frequently donning his “Get Your Ass To Mars” signature shirt while expounding on the topic. The astronaut has been toying with ideas for how to get to the planet since 1985, when he proposed a unique method of space travel involving less propellant called the “Aldrin cycler.”

The astronaut’s master vision entails a colony of 150 humans on Mars, sent to the planet in 18-person increments every two years. In a plan Aldrin unveiled in 2015, he presented ideas for a Mars launch timed to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the moon landing: July 20, 2019.

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Aldrin's virtual reality experience was created by the technology company 8i and was set to be available on multiple platforms including Oculus Rift and HTC Vive. But the astronaut wants far more out of a Mars trip than a “flag poles and footprints program” like the moon mission in which samples were collected quickly before astronauts left, he told USA Today.

“I don’t want to be remembered for just kicking moon dust,” Aldrin added.