Olaf Stampf, who always conducts smart interviews for Spiegel, has a Q&A with Johann-Dietrich Wörner, the new general director of the European Space Agency. Two quick excerpts follow, one about a moon colony and the other about the potential of a manned Mars voyage.

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Spiegel:

Which celestial body would you like to travel to most of all?

Johann-Dietrich Wörner:

My dream would be to fly to the moon and build permanent structures, using the raw materials available there. For instance, regolith, or moon dust, could be used to make a form of concrete. Using 3-D printers, we could build all kinds of things with that moon concrete — houses, streets and observatories, for example.

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Spiegel:

Wouldn’t it be a much more exciting challenge to hazard a joint, manned flight to Mars?

Johann-Dietrich Wörner:

Man will not give up the dream of walking on Mars, but it won’t happen until at least 2050. The challenges are too great, and we don’t have the technologies yet to complete this vast project. Most of all, a trip to Mars would take much too long today. It would be irresponsible, not just from a scientific standpoint, to send astronauts to the desert planet if they could only return after more than two years.•