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America can take man to the moon, and America can take men to Mars - and beyond.

The way I see it, what is going to come out of the moon activities is a respect for U.S. leadership.

I think we're going to the moon because it's in the nature of the human being to face challenges. It's by the nature of his deep inner soul... we're required to do these things just as salmon swim upstream.

If we don't do it, somebody else will. The Chinese, the Europeans and the Japanese all have the goal of going to the moon. Certainly we don't want to wake up and see that they have a base there before we do.

It is clear that the nation that assumes stewardship of the Moon now will inherit stewardship of the galaxy in the coming millennium. I think the USA is ready for that challenge!

But I don't think we'll go there until we go back to the moon and develop a technology base for living and working and transporting ourselves through space.

All the Chinese have to do is fly around the Moon and back, and they'll appear to have won the return to the Moon with humans. They could put one person on the surface of the Moon for one day and he'd be a national hero.

Here I am at the turn of the millennium and I'm still the last man to have walked on the moon, somewhat disappointing. It says more about what we have not done than about what we have done.

No matter what your age, gender, politics, nationality, social or financial standing, every single person inhabiting the planet Earth has the same reaction to him: 'Holy crap, Buzz Aldrin, you went to the moon!'