Speaking to a packed hall, Aldrin made it clear that Mars should be the ultimate goal of any long-term space exploration program. "The moon is not a great place to stay," he said. "I don't think that the Moon is a habitable place in the long term, but I think that Mars is."

After outlining lunar landers and surface vehicles that he is helping to design, Aldrin spoke at length about his concept for the Aldrin Cycler, a set of deep space vehicles which would be constantly cycling between the orbits of Earth and Mars. Explorers and scientists wishing to travel to the Red Planet would ride a rocket to one of the cyclers, hop aboard, and then ride a Mars descent vehicle that was in place in Mars orbit.

While plans for the Aldrin Cycler, which are being co-developed with Damon Landau of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Professor James Longuski of Purdue University, are still in the initial stages, Aldrin was emphatic that such a system, or indeed any mission to Mars, be used to send humans for the long term.

"The plan is for Mars to be continuously inhabited," he said.

In addition, Aldrin spoke about the upcoming movie In the Shadow of the Moon. The film, which won the prestigious Sundance Film Festival's World Cinema Audience Award in the Documentary category, features never-before-seen footage shot on the surface of the Moon by Apollo astronauts, as well as interviews with Aldrin and a number of other men who have set foot on the Lunar surface.

Aldrin's speech was one of the highlights of this year's International Mars Society Convention. In addition to speakers such as SpaceX founder Elon Musk and Dr. Fuk Li, director of the Mars exploration program at JPL, attendees of this year's convention heard from the crew of the FXI-LDM four-month Mars Arctic simulation mission, who presented their initial findings from the mission after flying in directly from Devon Island. Media coverage of this year's convention was extremely positive, including pieces on Voice of America and NPR's prestigiuos All Things Considered program.