Buzz Aldrin was the second man to walk on the moon, emerging soon after Neil Armstrong took the first lunar steps. Aldrin instantly became a celebrity, with people becoming intimately familiar with his biography. Interesting facts about Buzz Aldrin range from the origin of his nickname to him not making it into NASA's astronaut program until the third try. He also struggled greatly after leaving NASA in 1971. Aldrin has done everything from write novels to fly combat missions, and almost everything in between. He's gotten sober, feuded with companies that used his image without permission, punched a moon landing denier, and criticized NASA's current mission priorities. He's also been an advocate for manned space exploration - and for science education. Here are some interesting and little known Buzz Aldrin facts, one of the most fascinating figures in American history.
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Buzz Aldrin was born on January 20, 1930 as Edwin Eugene Aldrin, Jr. The name "Buzz" came from his sister, who mispronounced "brother" as "buzzer." The shortened version of that caught on with the family, and it stuck, so much so that Aldrin had his name legally changed in 1988.
In what was either a portent of what was to come or just a fun coincidence, Aldrin's mother Marion was born Marion Moon. Sadly, she committed suicide in 1968, one year before her son went to the moon.
Aldrin attended the United States Military Academy at West Point starting in 1947. He would eventually attend MIT in the early '60s, obtaining his doctorate in astronautics in 1963.
After graduating from West Point in 1951, Aldrin was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant in the Air Force. He was assigned to Korea, and flew 66 combat missions in an F-86 Sabre jet fighter. He shot down two MiG 15 fighters, and won a number of prestigious medals.
Aldrin's entire post-war career was geared toward becoming an astronaut, including his doctoral thesis at MIT, called "Line-of-sight guidance techniques for manned orbital rendezvous." But Aldrin was rejected after his first application to the astronaut corps, because he hadn't been a test pilot, and this was, at first, a requirement for acceptance. When that requirement was lifted, Aldrin was accepted in the third group of astronauts.
The Apollo 11 flight during which Aldrin and Armstrong walked on the moon was actually Aldrin's second time in space. Aldrin was assigned to pilot Gemini 12 in 1966, the final Gemini mission, on which he set a NASA record for time spent in space on an EVA.
While Apollo 11 mission commander Neil Armstrong ended up being the first human being to set foot on the moon, Buzz Aldrin wanted the distinction for himself. NASA protocol up until that point was that the less senior officer on a mission would be the first one out on a spacewalk, allowing the commander to stay inside if something went wrong. Various sources tell different stories, but both Aldrin and NASA apparently wanted Aldrin to come out first, leaving Armstrong inside to monitor Aldrin's walk. But positioning inside the lunar module made it impossible for Aldrin to get out first - Armstrong was the one closer to the door.
As the second human being to walk on the moon, Aldrin is the holder of a number of "firsts" on the moon. He held the first lunar religious service, taking communion using a kit from his home church in Houston, where Aldrin was an elder. The communion wasn't broadcast, and was kept a secret for many years, due to a lawsuit against NASA by a preeminent atheist who objected to religious readings in previous missions. Aldrin later said if he had to do it all over again, he might not have performed the communion ceremony.
Along with Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin became the first person to eat on the moon when he consumed ham-salad sandwiches and dehydrated snacks upon landing. Finally, he was the first man to ever urinate on the moon, relieving himself in his spacesuit - while hundreds of millions of people around the world watched.
When Armstrong and Aldrin landed Apollo 11 on the moon, they had to deal with a number of issues. Most notably, they overshot their landing spot and nearly landed in an area strewn with rocks - avoiding them in a maneuver that nearly cost them all their fuel. When it came time to launch the lunar module to leave the moon and rejoin the command module, Aldrin realized the switch to activate the ascent engine had been broken off. If they couldn't fire the engines, they'd be stuck on the moon until someone could rescue them - or for good. Fortunately, Aldrin thought fast and used a felt-tipped pen to push the circuit back in and fire the engines.
Aldrin left NASA in 1971 and retired from the Air Force in 1972. He took on a civilian managerial role with the Air Force, but struggled with the demands of his fame. He drank heavily and suffered from depression, with his marriage ending soon after his retirement. He found himself remarried and working as a car salesman in Beverly Hills - but never ended up selling many cars. After bottoming out, Aldrin got sober in 1978 and he has had a fulfilling personal and professional life ever since.
Aldrin has written several memoirs, including Return to Earth in 1973, and Magnificent Desolation in 2009. They detail the particulars of the moon missions, and the struggles he had after coming back and finding himself one of the biggest celebrities on the planet. He's also written a number of science-fiction novels, and has been a vocal advocate for further space exploration.
While Aldrin wore an Omega watch during his moon landing, he claimed the company used his image without permission or compensation in advertising the watch. He also sued Topps after the company issued trading cards with his image and didn't agree on a licensing fee with him.
Since Apollo 11, Aldrin has had a bit of a second career playing himself in various films and TV series. Among Aldrin's screen credits (always as himself) are: The Simpsons, Space Ghost, 30 Rock, Transformers: Dark of the Moon, and The Big Bang Theory. He also competed on Dancing with the Stars in 2010.
Like many high-ranking military officers, Aldrin is a Freemason, and very active in his lodge. Aldrin is a 33rd degree Mason with membership in Clear Lake Lodge #1417 of Texas.
On September 9, 2002, Aldrin was confronted in a Beverly Hills hotel by Bart Sibrel, a filmmaker and moon landing denier who demanded Aldrin swear on a Bible that the moon landings weren't fake. After Sibrel called Aldrin a coward and a liar, Aldrin responded by socking him in the jaw - which was caught on tape.
The UFO community saw Aldrin as an ally after a 2005 Science Channel interview in which he appeared to claim he saw something he believed to be an alien ship outside the window of Apollo 11. Aldrin later claimed his comments were taken out of context, and that the interview that aired in 2005 made him say something he didn't. What Aldrin was actually claiming was that he saw an object outside of Apollo 11 that was likely an adapter panel that had detached. But since he couldn't be sure, the object was quite literally an "unidentified flying object" - but not an alien ship.
Aldrin's book Mission to Mars: My Vision for Space Exploration lays out his vision for how NASA could launch a manned mission to the red planet - a vision NASA doesn't share. Aldrin also criticized the Obama administration for the NASA Asteroid Redirect Mission, which is intended to capture a near-earth asteroid and bring it back to earth for study. "Bringing an asteroid back to Earth? What's that have to do with space exploration?" Aldrin asked in 2013. "If we were moving outward from there and an asteroid is a good stopping point, then fine. But now it's turned into a whole planetary defense exercise at the cost of our outward exploration."
