Anders, 85, says he is a ‘strong supporter’ of the program unmanned ‘incredible’, ‘especially because the price is much cheaper’. But he said there was no public support to fund the mission of the mankind which is much more expensive.
“What’s important? What drives us to go to Mars?”he said, while adding, “I think people are not interested”.
Meanwhile, the robot research is still exploring Mars. Last month, the InSight, the robot will take a sample of inerior planet, successfully landed on Elysium Pianitia.
In a statement, NASA said the agency was “leading the way back to the Months that are sustainable, that will help us send astronauts to Mars”.
“As are commercial partners and international to develop a human presence in space and bring back knowledge and new opportunities.”
In December 1968, Anders, along with the crew of Frank Borman and Jim Lovell, starting from Cape Canaveral in Florida at the top of the Saturn V, before completing 10 orbits around the Moon.
The crew of Apollo 8 spend 20 hours in orbit before returning to Earth.
They are back in the Pacific Ocean on December 27, landing only to 4,500 meters of the target point them. They are picked up by the aircraft carrier USS Yorktown.
That exploration is the farthest ever achieved human from Earth at that time – and became an important stepping stone towards the landing of Apollo 11 on the moon the historic seven months later.
But the former astronaut’s alarming how NASA evolved since the time of President John F Kennedy’s promise to land a man on the Moon in the late 1960s.
“NASA can’t get to the Moon today. They are so conventional… NASA has turned into a work program… many departments who just want to keep busy and You do not see the public support in addition to the salary of their workers and their members of congress re-elected.”
Anders also critical of the decision to focus on the exploration of near-Earth orbit after the completion of the Apollo program in the 1970s.
“I think the space shuttle is a serious mistake. Projects that almost didn’t do anything except launch of the exciting, but never produce anything,” he said.
“The space station there are only in there because of the space shuttle, and vice versa. NASA’s totally wrong to manage the program manned since landing in the last month.”
That view may seem surprising from a patriot and a member of the U.S. military, which is still reminiscing about his own mission into outer space with full of pride. And Anders understand if some people in the community space can’t feel him.
“I think NASA is lucky to have what they get – which is still difficult, in my mind, to be justified. I am not a person that is popular at NASA for saying it, but that’s what I think,” he explained.
His former partner, Frank Borman, who led the Apollo 8 mission and also spent two weeks in Earth orbit during the program Gemini, a little more enthusiastic.
“I’m not as critically as Bill in the case of NASA,” he told 5 Live. “I strongly believe that we need to explore our solar system and I think humans are a part of it.”
But when asked about the plan of the founder of Space X, Elon Musk and Amazon boss, Jeff Bezos – who equally have been talking about launching a personal mission to Mars, Borman not positive of that.
“I think there’s a lot of excitement about Mars that makes no sense. Musk and Bezos, they talk about putting a colony on Mars, it’s bullshit.”
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