From Volume 8, Issue 28 of EIR Online, Published July 14, 2009

Global Economic News

NASA's Puttkamer Stresses Mission to Mars

July 11 (EIRNS)—In an interview with Germany's Der Spiegel, on the eve of the 40th anniversary of the first manned Moon landing, Jesco von Puttkamer, who has been working with NASA for about 50 years, says, among other things:

"Mars is the planet of our destiny. There's the well-founded hope that we might find traces of extraterrestrial life there for the first time, even if it's only fossilized microbes. A human scientist who can take and analyze samples on the ground is much better suited to this search than a robot, no matter how sophisticated it is. But the most important thing is the fact that people will one day set foot on Mars and populate it. The red desert planet Mars, provided it doesn't have any life of its own, could become a green Mars through so-called terraforming—in other words, active transformation. If that is successful, humankind will have created itself a second home, just in case an asteroid impact or other major catastrophe wipes out life on Earth. Only through having Mars as a reserve planet will the human race really become immortal."

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