Former astronaut Don Thomas speaks at Armstrong Air and Mu Space – Hometownstations.com-WLIO

The Air Museum and the Armstrong Space held a special conference with Don Thomas, an astronaut and Cleveland native.

Before talking about his experiences as an astronaut, Thomas pondered with the stations of your hometown. Neil Armstrong walking on the moon is probably one of the most historic events for NASA and I think for our country and perhaps for our civilization for planet Earth, "Thomas says. "It was truly an incredible moment, the first time humans leave planet earth to go to another world."

The United States has not been on the moon since 2011 but that does not mean that NASA is not working. Thomas says that the future of the space program is a new rocket being built by NASA, the Space Launch System, or SLS. This rocket will eventually return the American astronauts in orbit around the moon.

"It will be bigger and more powerful than the Saturn V rocket that sent Neil Armstrong to the moon in 1969," says Thomas. "We are building them, we are testing them right now, the first test launch is about a year and a half, there will be no astronauts on board, we will be a few years from now." 39, astronauts in orbit. Moon again. "

It's exciting to hear that the SLS will help bring astronauts to the moon, but Thomas says that's not all." He believes the new rocket will be crucial for putting on boots. NASA on Mars, but it will not be the boots of the astronauts who are working now.

"The astronauts who will march on Mars are not this generation, the astronauts Walk on Mars are some of the young students I see here at the Air Museum and the Armstrong Space, "explains Thomas. "I met a lot of them yesterday, they are in elementary school, they are in elementary school, they have stars and a twinkle in their eyes, I can see the excitement I had when I watched Neil Armstrong walking on the moon "

These twinkles and stars that Don Thomas sees on the small faces of the museum tell him that our future is in good hands and , perhaps, from the hands of Ohio

"The first American to orbit the Earth came from Ohio," says Thomas. "One of the first three humans to orbit the moon was from Ohio, the first man on the moon came from Ohio, and from the first person on Mars, what state should they come from? "

Thomas believes that the answer to this question is: Ohio.