Buzz Aldrin

Buzz Aldrin is a U.S. Air Force colonel famous for being the second man to set foot on the Moon. An accomplished engineer as well as a pilot, he was credited by Deke Slayton with saving the American space program.

Edwin Eugene Aldrin Jr. was born on January 20, 1930, in Glen Ridge near Montclair, New Jersey. His father was an aviation pioneer who worked with rocket developer Robert Goddard. He acquired the nickname Buzz, which he would later register as his legal first name, from his sister, who pronounced the word "brother" as "buzzer." After studying at Montclair High School he went on to attend the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, where he gained a Bachelor of Science and learned to fly. His first combat experience came in the Korean War, where he shot down two Mig-15s, and afterwards he worked as an aerial gunnery instructor in Nevada. He also served as a flight commander in Bitburg, Germany.

In 1959, Aldrin returned to academia to study for a doctorate in astronautics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The revolutionary space docking techniques which he devised for his thesis are still used to this day. Later he developed the neutral buoyancy underwater training techniques that astronauts use to prepare for weightlessness. Having proven himself as an innovator and an educator, he was subsequently selected to join the team of astronauts working on the Gemini missions. But it was only because of the tragic deaths of the Gemini 9 crew that allowed him to be scheduled for a flight. This gave him the opportunity to work outside his spacecraft and prove that spacesuits could be resilient for long periods of time. Having logged over three hundred hours of space flight time and having served as back-up command module pilot for the Apollo VIII mission, he was a natural choice as lunar module pilot for the historic Apollo XI flight.

On July the 20th, 1969, Aldrin followed Neil Armstrong onto the surface of the Moon. He found the experience deeply moving and privately performed a service of communion. Although his active military career ended just three years later, this was only the beginning of his new career promoting the importance of space exploration. He went on to design a space station and a transit system between Earth and Mars before launching rocket design company Starcraft Boosters, Inc. He wrote and co-wrote several books about spaceflight and about his experiences on the Moon as well as authoring two science fiction novels, Encounter with Tiber and The Return, with the assistance of John Barnes.

Despite his great successes, Aldrin has suffered from personal difficulties for much of his life, struggling against alcoholism and depression. Refusing to be defeated, he has continued to maintain a very busy schedule, which includes frequent lecture tours. He serves as a governor of the National Space Society and is a keen member of the Planetary Society. He also volunteers for the ShareSpace Foundation, which aims to make space tourism available to all.

Aldrin lives in Idaho with his wife and manager Lois Driggs. Between them they have six adult children and one grandchild. In his spare time he enjoys skiing and scuba diving.

YUDDY