Lunar legend Buzz Aldrin has a message to Earthlings: “Get your ass to Mars!”
The Apollo 11 veteran — the second man to walk on the moon in 1969 — tweeted a photo of himself in a Superman pose in front of England’s ancient Stonehenge, wearing a T-shirt bearing that blunt directive.
“I decided to send a message to the cosmos,” Aldrin tweeted along with the photo showing him gazing toward the heavens.
Aldrin, 85, an outspoken proponent of missions to Mars, struck the Man of Steel pose as part of his call for the US to pursue a new giant leap for mankind — the human settlement of the Red Planet.
“The moment to begin could be on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of Apollo 11’s touchdown on the moon,” he wrote in an opinion piece for CNN last year.
“We can make a courageous, Kennedyesque commitment to America’s future in deep space. The US president could utter these momentous words: ‘I believe this nation should commit itself, within two decades, to commencing an America-led, permanent presence on the planet Mars.’”
The outspoken ex-spaceman and prolific author is no social media slouch — with a very active Twitter account. He also is a selfie pioneer: The astronaut took a self-portrait during his Gemini 12 orbital mission back in 1966.
In a July 2014 tweet, he proclaimed the photo the “best selfie ever.”
Funds raised through the sale of Aldrin’s #GYATM shirt go toward his ShareSpace Foundation, a nonprofit that supports science, technology, engineering and math education.
“During the next few years we must choose whether we rebound as a vibrant nation leading our global civilization toward a permanent presence beyond Earth, or relinquish American leadership in space,” Aldrin wrote for CNN to mark the death of “Star Trek” icon Leonard Nimoy.
