Ron Garan: “I think we have a long, long way to go to get to Mars.” (HuffPost LIVE)

Former NASA astronaut Ron Garan was recently interviewed for Huffington Post’s LIVE broadcast. Ron talked about his new book The Orbital Perspective (read my review here) along with what it was like to be an astronaut and the way his experiences changed his views of life on Earth. (He also live-narrated some of the work being done at the time of the interview outside the ISS during EVA 30!)

In addition to talking about astronaut stuff, Ron weighed in on the human exploration of Mars, recently brought into the spotlight – for better or worse – with the announcement of 100 finalists by the Dutch MarsOne company, which has aspirations of creating the first human colony on the Red Planet. Ron says that while it will be important for us to venture out into the Solar System, really the next logical step would be to establish a permanent presence on our own Moon first.

“This is our closest neighbor, it’s three days away… There are so many things that could be done on the Moon that would have tremendous benefit.”
– Ron Garan, NASA astronaut

You can watch the entire video here, and share what you think in the poll below – should we go back to the Moon first? Or head right on out to Mars?

The photo below, which Ron calls “Downside Up Down Under,” shows him looking at Earth from within the ISS Cupola during his time in space during Expedition 28. He chose this shot for the cover of his book The Orbital Perspective.

ISS astronaut Ron Garan peers out of the Station’s cupola at the Earth below.