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It certainly is possible to construct a moon base in such a way that crews could stay for extended periods of time.

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.

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.

I think the future of lunar bases has to be somewhere around the South or North Pole. You have less variation in temperature and more daylight hours.

In a very real sense, it will not be one man going to the moon it will be an entire nation. For all of us must work to put him there.

You wouldn't want to land on the Moon and launch to Mars. That would be very inefficient.

I don't think there is much value in trying to use the moon as a base to go to Mars. That's going into one gravity belt and having to get back out of it again. And the moon doesn't have a lot to offer as a resource base.

The way I see it, commercial interests should manage a lunar base while NASA gets on with the really important task of flying to Mars.