Issue link: https://tmcpulse.uberflip.com/i/1138339
13 t m c » p u l s e | j u ly 2 0 1 9 Q | This year, the Trump Administration accelerated the U.S. space timeline and pledged to be on the moon again by 2024. Do you think we can do it? Should we do it? A | I think we can do it, if we have the will, and if they can muster support from Congress to get the dollars. I think it's going to look a little different from 1969. It's going to be more than just the government doing it. I think there's going to be private industry involved. The other difference I see is that instead of going there for just a few days, driving around in a lunar buggy and leaving our footprints, we'll be building habi- tats and living on the surface. Q | A lot of your medical research at NASA was about how space affects the body. How does that work apply to a journey to Mars? A | When I was [completing residency] at the Mayo Clinic, they had an aerospace group. I went to the head of it and said, 'I want to be an astro- naut. What advice would you give me?' He picked up the phone and called the head of life sciences at NASA—it's the group in charge of ensuring human survival in space. ➟ By the time July 1969 occurred, I was 13 years old watching the lunar landing. And that was just incredi- ble for me—not only seeing the stars but seeing human beings land on one of those planetary bodies. I wanted to follow in the footsteps of those guys.