Buzz Aldrin

Buzz Aldrin
Status	Retired
Nationality	American
Occupation	Fighter pilot
Space career
Astronaut
Rank	Colonel, USAF
Time in space	12 days, 1 hour and 52 minutes
Selection	1963 NASA Group
Missions	Gemini 12, Apollo 11
Mission insignia

Buzz Aldrin, Sc.D (born January 20, 1930 as Edwin Eugene Aldrin, Jr.) is an American pilot and astronaut who was the Lunar Module Pilot on Apollo 11, the first lunar landing. He was the second person to have set foot on the Moon, after Mission Commander Neil Armstrong.

Biography

Aldrin was born to Edwin Eugene Aldrin, Sr., a military man in Glen Ridge, New Jersey, where he became a Tenderfoot in the Boy Scouts of America. He attended Montclair High School in Montclair, New Jersey, and graduated from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. The nickname "Buzz" originated in childhood: his sister mispronounced "brother" as "buzzer" as a toddler, and this was shortened to Buzz. He made it his legal first name in 1988.

Military career

Buzz Aldrin in dress uniform

Aldrin graduated third in his class in 1951 with a bachelor of science degree. He was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant and served as a jet fighter pilot in the U.S. Air Force during the Korean War, where he flew 66 combat missions in F-86 Sabres and shot down two Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-15 aircraft.

After leaving Korea, Aldrin was an aerial gunnery instructor at Nellis Air Force Base in southern Nevada, and later an aide to the dean of faculty at the U.S. Air Force Academy.

Following this assignment, Aldrin flew F-100 Super Sabres as a flight commander at Bitburg, Germany in the 22nd Fighter Squadron.

Aldrin earned his doctorate of science in Astronautics from Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Massachusetts. His graduate thesis was Line-of-sight guidance techniques for manned orbital rendezvous. After leaving MIT, he returned to the Air Force and was assigned to the Gemini Target Office of the Air Force Space Systems Division in Los Angeles, and later to Edwards Air Force Base at the U.S. Air Force Test Pilot School.

Aldrin walks on the surface of the Moon during Apollo 11.

Aldrin was selected as part of the third group of NASA astronauts in October 1963. After the deaths of the original Gemini 9 prime crew, Elliott See and Charles Bassett, Aldrin was promoted to back-up crew for the mission. The main objective of the revised mission (Gemini 9A) was to rendezvous and dock with a target vehicle but when this failed Aldrin improvised an effective exercise for the craft to rendezvous with a co-ordinate in space. He was confirmed as pilot on Gemini 12, the last Gemini mission and the last chance to prove methods for EVA. He utilized revolutionary techniques during training for that mission, including neutrally-buoyant underwater training. Such techniques are still used today. Aldrin set a record for extra-vehicular activity and proved that astronauts could work outside the spacecraft.

Aldrin's lunar footprint in a photo taken by him, July 20, 1969.

Much has been said about Aldrin's desire at the time to be the first astronaut to walk on the moon. Differing NASA accounts have it that he had originally been proposed as the first, but the configuration of the lunar module was changed, or that protocol demanded that the commander (Armstrong) be the first. (In addition, in a March 1969 meeting between senior NASA personnel Deke Slayton, George Low, Bob Gilruth, and Chris Kraft, it was suggested that Armstrong be the first partly because Armstrong was seen as not having a large ego.) Nonetheless, Aldrin may have had an even more singular contribution. Armstrong's famous "Houston, Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed," were the first words intentionally spoken to Mission Control and the world from the lunar surface. However, the actual first words ever spoken on the moon, at approximately 20:17:39 UTC on July 20 1969, were very likely Aldrin's "Okay. Engine Stop" (although Armstrong leaves open whether he said "Shutdown" first.)

Aldrin is a Presbyterian, and is known for his statements about God. After landing on the moon, Aldrin radioed earth with these words: "I'd like to take this opportunity to ask every person listening in, whoever and wherever they may be, to pause for a moment and contemplate the events of the past few hours, and to give thanks in his or her own way." He received Communion on the surface of the moon, but kept his Communion a secret because of the lawsuit brought by Madalyn Murray O'Hair regarding the reading of Genesis on Apollo 8. Aldrin, a church elder, used a pastor's home Communion kit given to him by Dean Woodruff and recited words used by his pastor at Webster Presbyterian Church. He celebrated Communion alone, without his colleague Armstrong participating.

Retirement

In March 1972, Aldrin retired from active duty after 21 years of service, and returned to the Air Force in a managerial role, but his career was blighted by personal problems. His autobiography Return to Earth provides an account of his struggles with clinical depression and alcoholism in the years following his NASA career. His life improved considerably with his marriage to Lois Aldrin. Since retiring from NASA, he has continued to promote space exploration, including producing a unique computer strategy game called "Buzz Aldrin's Race into Space" (1992).

The UFO and Apollo hoax allegations

In 2005, while being interviewed for a documentary entitled "First on the Moon: The Untold Story," Aldrin told an interviewer that he and the crew of the Apollo 11 witnessed an unidentified flying object (UFO)--that is, in the literal sense of the word, an unknown object, not a form of extraterrestrial life. David Morrison, a NAI Senior Scientist, claims to have had a conversation with Aldrin in which he explained that the documentary cut out the interview portions in which Aldrin told interviewers that the Apollo 11 crew ultimately concluded that they were probably seeing a detached panel from the spacecraft. When Aldrin appeared on The Howard Stern Show on August 15, 2007, Howard Stern asked him about the supposed UFO sighting. Aldrin confirmed that there was no such sighting of anything deemed extraterrestrial, and said they were and are "99.9 percent" sure that the object was the detached panel. He also revealed to Stern that he underwent plastic surgery.

One conspiracy theory involving Aldrin stems from a supposed Apollo moon landing hoax by the U.S. government. On September 9, 2002, filmmaker Bart Sibrel, a proponent of the conspiracy allegations, confronted Aldrin outside a Beverly Hills, California hotel, demanding that Aldrin either swear an oath on the Bible that he had walked on the Moon or admit that it was all a hoax. When Aldrin tried to leave Sibrel put the Bible in front of him and called Aldrin "a coward, a liar, and a thief." Aldrin punched Sibrel in the face. Beverly Hills police and the city's prosecutor declined to file charges. Sibrel suffered no permanent injuries.

Honors and roles in the arts

The Aldrin crater on the Moon near the Apollo 11 landing site is named in his honor.

In 2001, President Bush appointed Aldrin to the Commission on the Future of the United States Aerospace Industry.

Aldrin received the 2003 Humanitarian Award from Variety, the Children's Charity, which, according to the organization, "is given to an individual who has shown unusual understanding, empathy, and devotion to mankind."

Aldrin is on the National Space Society's Board of Governors, and has served as the organization's Chairman; an inductee of the Astronaut Hall of Fame; and a member of The Planetary Society, with Aldrin's pre-recorded voice appearing on nearly every episode of the Society's Planetary Radio.

Aldrin has appeared in numerous film and television productions.

The British television comedy group Monty Python, on October 20 1970, ran an episode called the "Buzz Aldrin Show" with a few references to him and his photo superimposed over the credits while The Star-Spangled Banner was played.

Cliff Robertson played Aldrin in the 1976 TV-movie Return to Earth based on Aldrin's own memoir.

He voiced an animation of himself in "Deep Space Homer", a 1994 episode of The Simpsons in which he flies into space with Homer Simpson and fictional astronaut Race Banyon.

Aldrin was portrayed by Larry Williams in the 1995 film Apollo 13.

Aldrin played the role of Reverend Woodruff in the 1996 TV movie Apollo 11, while his own character was played by Xander Berkeley, who had previously played the small role of Henry Hurt in Apollo 13.

The matter of who would make the first step on the moon was dramatized in the 1998 miniseries From the Earth to the Moon, based on Andrew Chaikin's book A Man on the Moon, in which Aldrin was portrayed by Bryan Cranston.

Aldrin voiced himself in a 1999 episode of Disney's Recess.

Aldrin near module leg

Aldrin collaborated with science fiction author John Barnes to write Encounter With Tiber and The Return.

He appeared in a 2003 interview with Ali G in the British comedy series Ali G in da USA, during which Ali G referred to him as Buzz Lightyear and asked him if he thought man would ever walk on the sun.

In 2005, through Flatsigned Press, Aldrin released two signed limited edition books, Men From Earth and Encounter With Tiber.

In a 2006 episode of NUMB3RS entitled "Killer Chat", Aldrin plays himself and is seen at the end escorting Larry from the FBI headquarters on his way to his launch to the International Space Station.

On December 26 2006, UK TV channel Channel 4 transmitted a 50 minute opera by British composer Jonathan Dove called Man on the Moon, especially made for television. It tells the story of Aldrin's trip to the moon interleaved with the effects the experience had on him and his marriage. Aldrin was played by Nathan Gunn, and Joan Aldrin by Patricia Racette.

In 2007, Aldrin participated in the documentary In the Shadow of the Moon.

He plays himself in the 3-D animated film Fly Me to the Moon, due to be released in 2008.

The story of Apollo 11, through the eyes of Aldrin, was recently reimagined as a musical. 'Moon Landing' was written, composed and directed by Stephen Edwards, and performed at Derby Playhouse, and included inventive scenery, including a floating shuttle capsule.

External links

• Official website
• Buzz Aldrin's Official NASA Biography
• 10 Questions for Buzz Aldrin on Time.com (a division of Time Magazine)
• Video excerpt from "Apollo 11: The Untold Story"
• Buzz Aldrin Honored as an Ambassador of Exploration
• Spacefacts biography of Buzz Aldrin
• Buzz Aldrin's Roadmap to Mars (Popular Mechanics, December 2005)
• "Satellite of solitude" by Buzz Aldrin: an article in which Aldrin describes what it was like to walk on the Moon, Cosmos science magazine
• Buzz Aldrin decribes walking on the Moon for MSN.
• "SWINDLE Interview" SWINDLE Magazine interview with Buzz Aldrin

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