Colonel Edwin Eugene "Buzz" Aldrin, Jr., Ph.D (born January 20, 1930) is an American pilot and astronaut who became the second man to set foot on the Moon (after
Neil Armstrong) during the Apollo 11 mission, the first manned lunar landing.
Aldrin was born in Montclair, New Jersey. He graduated from Montclair High School and attended the U.S. Military Academy in West Point, New
York. He graduated third in his class in 1951 with a bachelor of science degree. Aldrin 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. After leaving this assignment, Aldrin flew F-100 Super Sabres as a flight commander at Bitburg, Germany.
Aldrin left military service to attend the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, where he earned his doctorate of
science in Astronautics. His graduate thesis was "Guidance 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. In March 1972, Aldrin retired from active duty after 21 years of service.
He was selected as an astronaut in 1963; on the Gemini 12 orbital mission, he
set a record for extra-vehicular activity. He is most famous for walking on the moon. His autobiography Return to Earth provides an account of his struggles
with depression and alcoholism in the years following his NASA career.
Aldrin has had a much more public persona than Neil Armstrong, and
it is said that originally it was he who would be first out onto the surface... however this did not happen. Buzz is well known
for having a mystical side, being a Freemason, and for having made statements
about God -- in contrast to Yuri Gagarin, who was always avowedly
atheist.
Since retiring from NASA, he has continued to promote space exploration, including
producing a unique computer strategy game called "Race into Space" (1992).
Aldrin also teamed up with science fiction author John Barnes to write Encounter With Tiber and The
Return.
In 2002, President Bush
appointed Aldrin to the Presidential Commission on the Future of
the United States Aerospace Industry[1] (http://www.buzzaldrin.com/space/reports/).
In September, 2002, conspiracy theorist Bart Sibrel's repeated demands (over several years) that astronaut Aldrin swear an oath on the Bible that he
had walked on the Moon, or admit that it was all a hoax, came to a head. Aldrin had repeatedly refused to take this oath, and Sibrel's
tactics with Aldrin and several other Apollo astronauts have been confrontational. Sibrel often gained access to the astronauts
by lying, claiming to represent organizations that he does not, and assuming false identities. When he approached Aldrin in
September 2002, he cornered Aldrin and a young female relative, stood in their way as they tried to leave the area and shouted
directly in Aldrin's face, shoving a Bible into Aldrin's ribs several times, calling Aldrin a "liar, a coward and a thief".
Aldrin punched Sibrel in the face, claiming that he felt forced to defend himself and his companion. Sibrel suffered no permanent
injury. Although the Beverly Hills police investigated the incident,
charges were dismissed. Admirers of Aldrin applauded the 72-year old former astronaut's actions.
A small crater on the Moon near
the Apollo 11 landing site is named in his honor.
He also has a TV star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame
on Hollywood and Vine.
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