Screaming Penguin - Source Does Matter

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia - Neil Armstrong said Tuesday that a manned mission to Mars will not happen for at least 20 years — but the effort might be easier than what it took to send him to the moon in 1969.

The first man to walk on the moon [ed: just in case you have an American science education, we'll tell you who he is] noted that scientists must develop better onboard spacecraft technology and stronger protection shields from harmful space radiation before a manned flight to the Red Planet can be accomplished.

"It will certainly be 20 years or more before that happens," Armstrong said during a global leadership forum.

"It will be expensive, it will take a lot of energy and a complex spacecraft. But I suspect that even though the various questions are difficult and many, they are not as difficult and many as those we faced when we started the Apollo (space program) [ed:see above] in 1961."

AP via Yahoo!