Buzz Aldrin says people will live on the Moon sooner than you might think

Buzz Aldrin, the second man to walk on the Moon, thinks humans will establish a lunar colony soon - and use it as a stepping-stone to Mars.

He told Tech Insider he envisions our Moon base will be like an extension of the International Space Station (ISS), with every country working together to operate it on a temporary basis.

"We rotate people, and we'll do that at the Moon as we establish permanent occupancy," Aldrin said. "But there's no need to have people living for long times, the rest of their life, because it's relatively easy to come back from the Moon."

The best ways to make occupancy more affordable, Aldrin said, are to design reusable landers, develop ways to refuel in space, and contract private companies to shuttle people to the Moon and back. All of these activities could be valuable practice for a mission to Mars.

A NASA-funded study published in July 2015 found that setting up a lunar colony would take only five to seven years and cost about $10 billion. The researchers even found this dream could be accomplished within NASA's existing deep space budget if funding stays flat.

NASA doesn't have any concrete plans to return to the Moon anytime soon. But the European Space Agency's director general Jan Woerner has expressed interest in setting up a "Moon Village." He too sees it as the next logical step in between the ISS and Mars.

"In the Moon Village we would like to combine the capabilities of different spacefaring nations, with the help of robots and astronauts. The participants can work in different fields, perhaps they will conduct pure science and perhaps there will even be business ventures like mining or tourism," Woerner said in an ESA Q&A. "The Moon Village would also act as a 'pit stop' for the further exploration of the Universe."

Aldrin said he expects the next country to land humans on the Moon will be China, but that an international collaboration to construct a lunar colony will follow soon after.

"I think we will be organizing the other three - Russia, Europe, Japan - so that they will be cooperating and coming along soon after China, because we're helping all of them," he said. "So it's going to be cooperation at the Moon and cooperation at Mars."