Baumgartner: Mars travel a waste of money

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WASHINGTON, Oct. 27 (UPI) -- Austrian daredevil Felix Baumgartner says he believes NASA's Mars mission is a waste of money that could be used for "saving our planet."

Speaking with The Daily Telegraph, Baumgartner, who became the first man to break the sound barrier after skydiving from 128,100 feet above Earth almost two weeks ago, said the U.S. government should spend money on environmental projects instead of sending robots to Mars.

"A lot of guys they are talking about landing on Mars," he said. "Because [they say] it is so important to land on Mars because we would learn a lot more about our planet here, our Earth, by going to Mars which actually makes no sense to me because we know a lot about Earth and we still treat our planet, which is very fragile, in a really bad way."

NASA landed the Curiosity rover on Mars this year to carry out a $2.5 billion exploration mission over the next 10 years.

"So I think we should perhaps spend all the money [which is] going to Mars to learn about Earth," Baumgartner said. "I mean, you cannot send people there because it is just too far away. That little knowledge we get from Mars I don't think it does make sense.

"That is tax money," Baumgartner, 43, said. "People should decide 'are you willing to spend all this money to go to Mars?' I think the average person on the ground would never spend that amount of money -- they have to spend it on something that makes sense and this is definitely saving our planet."