When you hear the name Buzz Aldrin, your mind,
I think for most of us, it immediately goes to
that one single transcendent moment. Oh, absolutely.
July 20, 1969. Yeah, that stark, magnificent
image of him standing on the lunar surface, the
second human being to ever leave Earth's dust
and, you know, step onto an alien world. It's
the ultimate historical snapshot for sure. But
the thing is, that one moment, it tends to sort
of obscure the decades of incredibly rigorous
technical and military preparation that came
before it. Edwin Eugene Aldrin Jr. Buzz was not
just a passenger on Apollo 11. I mean, he was
a decorated combat veteran, a pioneer of orbital
mechanics, and the first astronaut to hold a
doctoral degree. So our mission today, this is
a deep dive into this, this massive stack of
sources covering his entire and I think surprising
trajectory. We're trying to move beyond just...
that simple Apollo 11 headline. We are tracking
the story from his childhood nickname and what
was it? 66 combat missions in Korea all the way
through his pivotal role as like the architect
of orbital rendezvous, his subsequent personal
collapse after the glory of the moon and his
current, you know, tireless focus on getting
us to Mars. It's the story of a man who is just
defined by extremes. You have the. Highly disciplined,
often rigid military professional. And that's
contrasted so sharply with the deeply intellectual,
sometimes turbulent individual who had to invent
solutions to problems no one had ever faced before.
So we have to answer the question. How did the
boy affectionately nicknamed Buzzer become Dr.
Rendezvous? How did he save the spacewalk program
in Gemini, help save Apollo 11 during the landing,
and then go on to write the actual roadmap for
humanity to become a two planet species? It's
a huge legacy. It's a huge legacy. OK, let's
unpack this. Let's start with what feels like
an almost impossible biographical coincidence.
Something that seems to have, I don't know, predestined
his career path. He was born Edwin Eugene Aldrin
Jr. in Glen Ridge, New Jersey, in 1930. Right.
And the name Buzz, which is now so legendary,
it started as just a childish mispronunciation.
Just a family thing. A pure domestic history
thing. His older sister, Faye Ann. She just couldn't
pronounce brother. And it came out as buzzer.
It came out sounding like buzzer and it stuck,
you know, instantly. He only legally made it
his first name much, much later in 1988. Okay,
but here's the detail that, I mean, it feels
lifted from a Hollywood script. This is the one.
It's his mother's maiden name. It was Moon. Marion
Moon. Marion Aldrin, nay Moon. You just can't
make that stuff up. It feels cosmically aligned,
doesn't it? Completely. And the connection to
aviation, that was familial as well, right? It
wasn't just him. No, not at all. His father,
Edwin Eugene Aldrin Sr., was a really respected
figure in the early aviation community. He was
an Army aviator during World War I, and later
he served as the assistant commandant of the
Army's test pilot school. So the expectation
of excellence and a life in the sky was definitely
set early. The bar was set very high from the
beginning. But the sources we have, they note
this characteristic stubbornness and focus in
him from a very early age. His father, you know,
being a career military man, he really wanted
him to attend the Naval Academy at Annapolis.
Right, which was sort of the expected path. But
Aldrin deliberately chose a different path. He
did. He chose the United States Military Academy
at West Point. And he graduated third in the
famous class of 1951 with a B .S. in mechanical
engineering. And his reason for avoiding Annapolis
is pretty telling, isn't it? It's very telling.
He suffered from seasickness. I mean, he just
flat out said he considered ships a distraction
from the act of flying. Wow. He was absolutely
intent on joining the Air Force, which you have
to remember had just become its own service branch.
So it shows this intense, almost tunnel vision
focus on his core goal. He was going to fly high
performance jets and nothing was going to get
in the way. Nothing. And fly he did. Commissioned
into the Air Force. That intense focus led him
immediately into the heat of the Korean War.
And we're not talking about training slides.
This is 66 combat missions flown in the F -86
Sabre. Yeah, this was aerial dogfighting against
the Soviet -built MiG -15s. This was the real
deal. 66 missions is an extensive combat tour.
I mean, the sources really document his effectiveness
as a pilot. Oh, for sure. He achieved two confirmed
aerial victories. He shot down two MiG -15s.
And, you know, the nature of those dogfights
was just incredibly high stakes, high speed maneuvering.
Let's focus on that first kill for a second.
May 14th, 1953. The source material hints at
the sheer speed and the surprise involved. Well,
Aldrin later recounted that in that kind of fast
paced, fluid environment of jet combat, the enemy
pilot often didn't even know he was there until
it was too late. So he had the element of surprise.
Absolutely. Yeah. His F -86 was superior in the
dive. And his first kill was just a textbook
example of a surprise attack from a superior
position. But what's really fascinating, especially
for our deep dive today, is how it connects him
to the public sphere long before NASA. And that's
the second victory. The Life magazine connection.
That's the one. After shooting down his second
MiG on June 8, 1953, the gun camera footage from
Aldrin's plane, it actually captured the enemy
pilot ejecting. No way. You can see the pilot
bailing out. You can see it. This dramatic, high
-contrast image was published in the June 8,
1953, issue of Life magazine. It instantly made
him a recognized hero, you know, a face of American
military prowess decades before he ever went
to the moon. So he was already a public figure
in a way. In military circles, definitely. He
was highly decorated, received two distinguished
flying crosses, three air medals for his service.
He was an elite warrior before he was an elite
scientist. And that transition from decorated
fighter pilot to doctoral scholar, that's what
truly sets him apart in the history of space
exploration. It really is. After his combat tour,
he was encouraged to pursue advanced studies,
primarily by Ed White, who would later tragically
be lost in the Apollo 1 fire. So that was the
moment he made a conscious decision to shift
gears. Absolutely. From being purely an operational
pilot to becoming an intellectual pioneer. He
entered the Air Force Institute of Technology
and then went to the Massachusetts Institute
of Technology, MIT. Initially just for a master's,
right? That was the plan, but he quickly decided
to pursue... a doctor of science, an SCD in astronautics.
And this is where that famous nickname, Dr. Rendezvous,
came from and really became his professional
identity. Exactly. He earned that degree in January
1963, making him the first astronaut with a doctoral
degree. But the real genius here was his thesis
topic. It was called Line of Sight Guidance Techniques
for Manned Orbital Rendezvous. Okay, so this
wasn't just some academic fluff. This was a solution
to one of NASA's single most vexing logistical
problems at the time. The most vexing problem.
So let's break down the significance of that.
Why was orbital rendezvous such a massive problem?
And what did his line of sight guidance actually
solve? OK, so rendezvous is the process of locating
and linking up two spacecraft that are moving
at thousands of miles an hour in different orbits.
It's way more complex than just, you know, getting
close. You have to match speeds perfectly. Perfectly.
and without using a ton of fuel. Before Aldrin,
the standard techniques were really rigid. They
relied on complex, pre -calculated, time -intensive
burns, and often guidance from the ground. So
if you missed a burn window, or let's say the
radar failed, you were essentially lost. You
were in big, big trouble. Precisely. What Aldrin's
line -of -sight guidance introduced was a technique
that allowed the astronaut in the cockpit to
calculate the necessary maneuvers dynamically.
In real time. In real time, using only a sextant
and a stopwatch. relative to the target vehicle.
It was a visual in -cockpit solution for a multi
-body physics problem. So it gave the crew the
charts and the math to do it themselves manually
if the high -tech electronics failed. Yes. And
his thesis fundamentally underpinned the entire
lunar orbit rendezvous concept. A lure. Okay,
that's a key term we need to explain. Right.
Lure was the critical strategy for Apollo. Instead
of launching a massive rocket directly to the
moon, landing the whole thing and relaunching
it. Which would have been unbelievable. Unbelievably
huge. Unbelievably huge. You instead launched
the smaller lunar module, the LM, into orbit
around the moon. You detached the LM to go down
to the surface, and then you had the LM launch
back up to rendezvous dock with the command module,
the CM. which stayed in lunar orbit. So without
guaranteed, precise, and fuel -efficient rendezvous,
the Apollo mission was basically a non -starter.
A complete non -starter. And Buzz Aldrin wrote
the operational Bible for that critical step.
What's so fascinating, though, is that while
his education was obviously invaluable, that
nickname, Dr. Rendezvous, it wasn't always intended
as a compliment by the other astronauts, was
it? No, not at all. The sources suggest there
was some palpable resentment there. The Astronaut
Corps, as you know, is famously dominated by
jet test pilots. It was a culture built on daring,
fast reflexes, operational skill, the right stuff.
And Aldrin was the academic. He was the academic,
the brainy scientist who used his intellectual
output to kind of bypass that traditional test
pilot prerequisite. They saw him as maybe less
operationally sound, relying too much on theory.
And that bias initially cost him. He was rejected
for Astronaut Group 2 in 1962. Yep, because he
lacked that mandatory test pilot experience.
He was highly motivated. He requested a waiver.
Which was denied. Denied. But NASA, in its wisdom,
they recognized the immense value of his specialized
intellectual talent. So when they selected Astronaut
Group 3 in October 1963, they wisely broadened
the criteria. They lowered the bar a bit. Well,
they changed the bar. They accepted candidates
with 1 ,000 hours of jet time. alongside the
test pilot experience. And Aldrin, with his SCD
and over 2 ,500 hours of total flying time, 2
,200 in jets, he was finally in. And his initial
assignment upon selection just confirms his value,
right? Absolutely. His area of expertise after
training was mission planning, trajectory analysis,
and flight plans. He wasn't just another pilot
waiting for a flight. He was actively shaping
the mechanics of the entire space program. And
that groundwork was about to be put to the ultimate
high -pressure test in the Gemini program. OK,
so the Gemini program, which ran through 1965
and 1966, was NASA's vital stepping stone to
the moon. It proved the LoRa concept. It proved
long duration flight. It proved rendezvous. But
it was failing and failing spectacularly at one
critical thing. The spacewalk or extravehicular
activity. The EVA crisis. It was a fundamental
flaw that was threatening the entire Apollo timeline.
It really was. Humans simply could not effectively
work outside the capsule without suffering severe
exhaustion. Astronauts like Gene Cernan on Gemini
9 and Richard Gordon on Gemini 11, they had failed
to complete even relatively simple tasks. Let's
drill into Cernan's failure on Gemini 9 because
that really raised the stakes for Aldrin in a
significant way. Cernan's spacewalk was supposed
to last two hours and 20 minutes. He was meant
to test an astronaut maneuvering unit, or AMU,
basically a jetpack. The dream of every sci -fi
fan. Right. But he struggled immediately with
the zero -g environment. The work was so physically
demanding, he described it like trying to wrestle
a recalcitrant octopus. His visor fogged up,
he overheated, and he couldn't even reach the
attachment point for the AMU. So after two agonizing
hours... He was so depleted, he barely had the
strength to get back inside the capsule and close
the hatch. His description was that he felt like
a wet noodle. Wow. That failure demonstrated
that the sheer physical effort required in space
was exponentially greater than anyone had anticipated
because astronauts were just relying purely on
arm strength to brace themselves. Exactly. If
Cernan couldn't even stabilize himself, how could
an Apollo astronaut possibly set up a seismometer
or collect core samples on the moon? It was a
showstopper. And the answer to that question
fell to Aldrin and Jim Lovell. It did. They were
elevated to the prime crew for the final Gemini
mission, Gemini 12, after the tragic death of
the original crew in a training accident. So
Gemini 12, launching in November 1966, was the
program's last chance to solve this EVA problem.
It was everything. And to give Aldrin the best
possible chance, NASA had to admit that their
training methodology was fundamentally wrong.
And Aldrin, with his intellectual analytical
approach, was instrumental in revamping that
whole process. He was. The big flaw was the reliance
on training during parabolic flights. You know,
the vomit comet. Right. Those flights only gave
you about 20 seconds of weightlessness, and that
was separated by minutes of 1G rest. And the
sources note that this rhythm, this on -off -on
-off, it encouraged rushing the task during that
brief 0G period. Which is exactly the wrong approach
for working in space. The exact opposite of what
you need to do. So what was the breakthrough
training revolution that Aldrin championed? The
underwater training. The transition to underwater
neutral buoyancy training. By immersing himself
in a large water tank, Aldrin could experience
the slow, deliberate movements required for much
longer periods. Hours, not seconds. And the water
provides that resistance. Yeah, that viscous
drag and buoyancy. It simulated the difficulty
of moving against the inertia of a massive spacesuit
in space. And it forced him to learn to move
slowly and conserve his energy. It's a method
NASA still uses today. So that's the intellectual
approach again, right? changing the training
environment to force the correct operational
pace. But the hardware had to change, too. Oh,
massively. And this is a crucial low -tech realization
that came along with the high -tech training.
They realized the problem wasn't just a lack
of strength. It was the lack of places to anchor
that strength. Handholds. Handholds. The Gemini
9 capsule had only nine usable handholds. Nine.
For Gemini 12... NASA radically modified the
spacecraft. And the number of external handholds
was dramatically increased to? 44. 44. Wait,
so NASA spent billions on orbital mechanics and
propulsion, but the fixed force spacewalk fatigue
was essentially just bolting on more handles.
I mean, wasn't that a bit of an embarrassing
yet critical realization for the engineers? It
was an incredible lesson in biomechanics trumping
raw engineering. You can be the strongest person
on earth, but in zero G without a place to brace,
your effort just translates into spinning yourself
away from the task. And it wasn't just handholds.
No, those 44 handholds, plus the addition of
specialized footwork stations, allowed Aldrin
to lock his feet in and use his core strength
for leverage, rather than relying solely on his
arms. It was a total game changer. But before
he even got to the EVA, his... Dr. Rendezvous
expertise basically saved the mission during
the rendezvous with the Agena target vehicle.
This is where his SCD thesis truly paid off operationally.
As they approached the Agena, the spacecraft's
rendezvous radar system failed completely. The
exact contingency he had studied. The exact contingency.
They were essentially flying blind. But using
the detailed manual charts he had created and
a handheld sextant, Aldrin manually calculated
the position of velocity of the aegina relative
to Gemini 12. So he used celestial navigation
in a space capsule to navigate a manual dock.
That's incredible. He provided Jim Lovell with
the precise data needed to execute a successful,
completely manual docking. It was a staggering
feat of computational navigation under pressure
and it proved the validity of his 1963 doctoral
work. And without that capability, the mission
and possibly the entire Gemini program would
have ended in failure. No question. With the
rendezvous secured, Aldrin began his historic
EVAs. He completed three of them, logging over
five hours outside the capital. What were the
three different EVAs? So the first was a two
-hour, 20 -minute stand -up EVA, where he just
evaluated effort levels while partially exposed.
This confirmed the new system worked. The second
was the critical one, the free -flight EVA, lasting
over two hours. And that's where he did the actual
work. That's where he performed complex tasks
like installing cables on the Agena and testing
specialized tools that would be needed for Apollo.
And the key to his success was discipline, both
technical and personal. Absolutely. That's why
the sources emphasize the structure of that EVA.
To manage the fatigue problem that plagued Cernan
and Gordon, Aldrin's schedule had 12 meticulously
planned two -minute rest periods built right
into the two -hour workload. So he had to be
disciplined enough to stop working, rest, and
then resume. Which is harder than it sounds.
He proved that EVA was possible, provided the
right training, and modifications were in place.
Gemini 12 secured the path for Apollo. But despite
this monumental technical and personal achievement,
there was an immediate emotional consequence.
Yes. The sources mention his wife noting that
he fell into a depression almost immediately
after returning home. He had solved NASA's biggest
problem. He'd achieved mission success. And now
there was this inevitable grinding wait for the
pinnacle. Apollo 11. It hints very strongly at
the deeper psychological challenges that would
resurface later after the ultimate peak. And
that pinnacle was Apollo 11. Aldrin was the Lunar
Module Pilot, the LMP, paired with Commander
Neil Armstrong and Command Module Pilot Michael
Collins. The entire world was watching. But before
the launch, there was significant internal tension.
The sources we have note that Deke Slayton, the
head of flight crew operations, he was concerned
enough about Aldrin's perceived difficulty collaborating
with others. His abrasive personality. His abrasive
personality that he actually offered Armstrong
the option to replace him with Jim Lovell. Wow.
And Armstrong, as commander, the final decision
was his. It was. And he declined the offer. He
believed Lovell deserved a command of his own
later, which of course he eventually got with
Apollo 13. But this background detail is crucial
because it shows the internal dynamic. Aldrin
was often seen as brilliant, intense, and socially
difficult. The technical expert who needed to
be managed. That internal friction really came
to a head over the most famous argument in space
history. Who steps out first? Yeah. Aldrin strongly
felt he should be first. Early NASA checklists
stemming from the Gemini program actually listed
the LMP Aldrin as the first person to exit the
vehicle. And Aldrin lobbied aggressively for
this original protocol to be followed. But at
the end of the day, physics and vehicle design
won out over protocol and ego. They did. The
physical reality inside the Eagle was the deciding
factor. The hatch opened inward, and the quarters
were so tight, it was just far simpler for the
person on the left, Armstrong, to maneuver past
Aldrin and the equipment bay to get out. And
Michael Collins later had a pretty sharp observation
about that. He did. He remarked that Aldrin resents
not being first on the moon more than he appreciates
being second. While that's harsh, it really encapsulates
Aldrin's intensely competitive drive and the
psychological weight of being number two. OK,
so after the spectacular launch on July 16th,
1969 and the journey to lunar orbit, the true
test came during the descent of the Eagle on
July 20. This is the ultimate crucible where
Aldrin's technical expertise. Armstrong's operational
skill and just sheer luck all converged. It's
an incredible moment. Aldrin was busy reading
the navigation data and trajectory callouts to
Armstrong. And about five minutes into the power
descent burn at roughly 6 ,000 feet above the
lunar surface, the Lunar Guidance Computer, the
LGC, it suddenly started flashing warnings. The
terrifying 1202 and 1201 program alarms. This
is where we need to get into the technical details
and just the immense pressure this caused. So
the source of the alarms was actually a benign
technical oversight. The LGC was designed to
receive inputs from the Rendezvous radar, which
was used for subsequent missions to connect the
Eagle back to Columbia. But they weren't using
it for the landing. Exactly. During the descent,
the Rendezvous radar was switched to standby,
but due to a wiring issue, it was sending these
spurious electrical pulses to the LGC. The computer
Instead of just ignoring these signals, was trying
to process them, cycling through all these unnecessary
calculations. And what did the 1202 and 1201
alarms specifically mean? What was the computer
telling them? They meant executive overflow,
1202, and no vacancy. Essentially, the LGC was
screaming, I'm overloaded, I'm trying to do too
many tasks at once, and I don't have enough processing
time or memory space to complete the high -priority
navigational tasks. It was a mission -critical
failure warning. Up in the Eagle, the alarms
are flashing. Down in Houston, what was the mood?
And how did they figure out the solution so incredibly
fast? The tension was astronomical. But thanks
to the incredible preparation of the ground crew,
specifically a 26 -year -old guidance officer
named Steve Bales and flight director Gene Kranz.
They had studied these potential computer failures
and simulations. They had seen this before. They
had. Bales knew that the computer was designed
to prioritize the navigation and flight control
tasks, effectively ignoring the low -priority
tasks caused by that radar input overflow. So
Bales makes the snap call. We are go on that
alarm. Exactly. Kranz famously directed, we'll
proceed to the landing as long as the alarms
don't recur or become constant. This decision
was based on trust in the software and in the
training. But the LGC problems meant Armstrong
was deprived of precise, reliable computer control.
Which forced him to take manual control, looking
for a safe landing zone. He did. The LGC was
guiding them right toward a large, rock -strewn
crater field, what was later named West Crater.
Armstrong expertly pitched the Eagle over, manually
maneuvering it like a helicopter to skim past
that dangerous terrain. And all the while, Aldrin
is calling out altitude and fuel levels, right?
Maintaining incredible mental discipline despite
the chaos and the alarms. He's calling out, 30
feet, two and a half, dusty. The sheer precision
required to bring that vehicle to a perfect gentle
stop without bouncing or tipping was immense.
And Armstrong landed the Eagle at 20 .42 .40
UTC, establishing tranquility base, with only
about 25 seconds of fuel remaining. 25 seconds.
Stop and think about that pressure. You've flown
halfway across the universe, you've solved a
computer crisis mid -flight, and now you are
essentially gliding a billion -dollar machine
to a halt with 25 seconds of gas left. What was
the expert consensus on the true risk of that
moment? The consensus, even decades later, is
that they pushed the absolute operational envelope.
Had they needed just 10 more seconds to find
a clear spot, or had the engine not cut off cleanly,
they would have crashed. It was an astonishing
display of pilot skill backed up by Aldrin's
cool -headed navigation calls under duress. After
the immediate elation of landing, there was a
quiet, profound moment before Armstrong opened
the hatch. Aldrin conducted a private ceremony
that remained secret for years. Yeah, as a Presbyterian
elder, Aldrin became the first person to conduct
a religious ceremony and consume food and liquid
on the moon. He brought communion elements, bread
and wine, and a tiny kit. And he read a passage
from John 15 .5. Why did he keep this secret?
And why did he later express some regret about
the timing of it? Well, it stemmed from a massive
controversy that followed the Apollo 8 mission.
Frank Borman and his crew read the first 10 verses
of Genesis aloud during their Christmas Eve broadcast
from lunar orbit. And a prominent atheist sued
NASA over it. She did, arguing the use of government
property for religious purposes violated the
separation of church and state. So to avoid more
legal trouble, Aldrin just decided to keep his
private communion secret. That makes perfect
sense given the political environment at the
time. For sure. Later, Aldrin clarified his regret
wasn't really about his faith, but about the
specific sacrament. He felt that since the mission
was undertaken in the name of all mankind, a
Christian sacrament didn't represent the universal
nature of the achievement. A more inclusive message
was needed. Yes. So instead, on the way back
to Earth, he broadcast a reading of Psalm 8 .3
-4, a message about human insignificance and
awe in the face of the universe, which provided
a far more universal message. So once on the
surface, 19 minutes after Armstrong, Aldrin steps
down and delivers his famous poetic summary of
the landscape. Magnificent desolation. Yeah.
It perfectly captured the sublime beauty of the
location paired with the stark, lifeless emptiness.
A truly intellectual description of the environment.
And while on the surface, he dedicated time to
operational research. He did. He experimented
with different locomotion methods. Bunny hops?
Skipping to determine the most efficient way
for future moonwalkers to move across the surface.
Well, there's that persistent visual anomaly.
Why are almost all the iconic reflective visor
photographs of an astronaut on the moon from
Apollo 11 actually pictures of Buzz Aldrin and
not Neil Armstrong? It was an operational quirk.
Armstrong, as commander, was the designated photographer.
He kept the specialized Hasselblad camera attached
to his chest for most of the EVA. So he was the
one taking all the pictures? He was. When he
photographed Aldrin saluting the flag or standing
next to the seismometer, he was capturing those
iconic images. Aldrin later recounted that it
wasn't until they were back on Earth that they
realized just how few pictures there were of
Armstrong himself. A surprising imbalance in
the historical record. It is. And before ascending
the ladder, Aldrin also secured his place in
the annals of space firsts by becoming the first
person to urinate on the moon. A testament to
human physiology in an extreme environment. Exactly.
The crew spent hours deploying the passive seismic
experiment package and the laser -ranging retroreflector.
Aldrin undertook the particularly difficult and
physically strenuous task of hammering a metal
tube deep into the lunar soil to get a core sample.
A job that required the very leveraged techniques
he had perfected in the Gemini 12 EVAs. The very
same. And as they left, the memorial bag they
tossed out speaks volumes about the human costs
of exploration. What was in the bag? It was a
silent tribute. It contained patches honoring
the deceased Apollo 1 crew. Gus Grissom, Roger
Chaffee, and Ed White in medallions commemorating
the two deceased Soviet cosmonauts. Yuri Gagarin.
and Vladimir Komarov. It was a recognition that
while they had achieved the ultimate goal, it
came with immense sacrifice across all nations.
Absolutely. They lifted off, having successfully
collected and returned 21 .55 kilograms, 47 .5
pounds of lunar material. We came home to unparalleled
global celebrity, but that extreme sudden peak
of human achievement led directly to a profound
personal valley. Yeah, this section of the material
really addresses the cost of being an icon. Aldrin
left NASA in July 1971, less than two years after
the landing, and returned to the Air Force as
a colonel. The transition was immediately fraught
with difficulty. He was assigned as the commandant
of the USAF Aerospace Research Pilot School,
the school that trained the elite test pilots
and astronauts. On paper, that sounds like a
perfect fit for a former astronaut. It does,
but operationally it was a disaster. It was a
classic example of miscasting. How so? While
Aldrin had massive flight hours, he lacked the
specific managerial experience and the test pilot
background required to run the school's high
-stakes curriculum. The sources detail a severe
clash with his superior, Brigadier General Robert
M. White. I can just imagine the tension there.
The general trying to run a disciplined training
program while this global icon, the moonwalker,
is getting all the deference and attention. The
friction was immense. The sources indicate that
Aldrin's celebrity often undercut the general's
authority and that Aldrin just struggled with
the complex day -to -day managerial duties of
the school. And there were some accidents under
his command. There were. Two critical accidents,
an A7 Corsair II and a T -33. Thankfully, without
fatalities, but the blame for insufficient supervision
was placed squarely on the commandant. And that
failure, coming right after the biggest success
imaginable, must have contributed to the inevitable
post -mission decompression. It did. The depression
was clinical and profound. Compounding his immediate
career stress was this long -standing unresolved
tragedy. His mother, Marion, had committed suicide
in 1968, shortly before Apollo 11. And he struggled
with guilt over that. A lot of guilt. He believed
his fame after Gemini 12 contributed to the stress
and attention on the family, which may have exacerbated
her emotional state. At a time when mental health
was so stigmatized, especially for a military
hero, this must have been incredibly isolating
for him. It was. He was hospitalized for clinical
depression at Wolford Hall Medical Center for
four weeks. He retired from the Air Force in
March 1972 after 21 years of service, really
struggling with the concept of what do you do
after you've walked on the moon? He recounted
these struggles very candidly in his autobiographies.
He did in Return to Earth in 1973 and then Magnificent
Desolation in 2009. And we see him trying to
fit into a normal life with attempts like, what,
selling used cars? An attempt that failed miserably.
The sources paint this picture of years of turbulence,
alternating periods of sobriety and heavy drinking,
resulting in hospitalizations and at one point
an arrest for disorderly conduct. But his ultimate
recovery and commitment to sobriety in October
1978 is really a testament to his sheer willpower.
It's the same willpower that landed the Gemini
capsule manually. He just channeled it inward.
It's an extraordinary journey, moving from the
zenith of human achievement to the nadir of personal
struggle and then finding that resilience to
recover so publicly. But even in later life,
he remained a magnet for public drama. The 2002
Bart Sibrel incident is probably the most famous
example of this unwanted public scrutiny. Sibrel.
A persistent moon landing conspiracy theorist
accosted the 72 -year -old Aldrin under false
pretenses. And he was demanding Aldrin swear
on a Bible that the landings were real. He was,
and he was highly aggressive, repeatedly calling
Aldrin a coward, a liar, and a thief. And famously,
Aldrin responded physically. In a brief moment
of provocation, he punched Sybil in the jaw.
Crucially, the sources note that police investigated
the incident and declined to press charges, concluding
Aldrin was acting in self -defense and was highly
provoked. It was a very public defining moment
of frustration against the erosion of truth.
It was. And he also had to battle media sensationalism
regarding UFOs, which threatened to undermine
his credibility as a serious scientist. This
came from a Science Channel documentary, right?
It did. He mentioned seeing an unidentified flying
object during Apollo 11. What the interviewer
omitted was the crew's immediate conclusion.
What was their conclusion? Aldrin and the crew
were 99 .9%. Sure, the object was one of the
four detached spacecraft adapter panels from
the Saturn V upper stage, which sometimes tracked
alongside the capsule for a while. So a benign
piece of space junk was just inflated into an
alien encounter by selective editing. Exactly.
He had to issue public clarifications, even requesting
a correction from the Science Channel, which
they refused to make. His words were basically
weaponized to fuel the very conspiracy theories
he had spent a lifetime trying to discredit.
On a much lighter note, though, his legacy secured
him a unique place in popular culture, immortality.
Yes, the Toy Story character, Buzz Lightyear,
was named in his honor, a wonderful tribute.
And he's also honored in the cosmos. With the
Aldrin Crater on the Moon and Asteroid 6470 Aldrin
both bearing his name. We should also touch briefly
on his personal life milestones later in life.
He saw four marriages, Joan Archer, Beverly Van
Zillow. Lois Driggs Cannon, and most recently,
Anka Forr, whom he married on his 93rd birthday
in January 2023. That marriage, tragically, was
short -lived. Anka Forr passed away peacefully
in October 2025 at the age of 66. It was a profound
emotional loss for him later in his life, and
he maintained that she was the... love of his
life. And there was also that legal dispute he
faced in 2018 with his children. There was over
claims of his mental impairment, which was publicly
resolved when the lawsuit and petition were dropped
in 2019. It allowed him to celebrate the 50th
anniversary of Apollo 11 free of that cloud.
He lived a life of constant pressure and high
visibility. But his true legacy, his final act,
is not focused on the past achievements, but
on defining the future of space exploration,
the road to Mars. Aldrin's passion for Mars is
the perfect culmination of his career as Dr.
Rendezvous. Having solved Earth -Moon orbital
mechanics, his final grand project is solving
the Earth -Mars problem. And this is where we
need to dive deep into his most significant technical
contribution since his SCD thesis, the Aldrin
Cycler, which he proposed back in 1985. The Aldrin
Cycler is an intellectual tour de force. It's
a special spacecraft trajectory that provides
a constantly repeating, predictable, and remarkably
fuel -efficient path between Earth and Mars.
To understand its brilliance, we should probably
touch on the traditional method of travel between
planets. Right. The Hohmann transfer orbit. A
traditional Hohmann transfer is the most fuel
-efficient way to move between two orbits, but
it requires two large propellant burns, one to
leave Earth and another one to break into Mars
orbit. And the travel time is fixed and the windows
for transfer only open up, what, every 26 months?
Exactly. So the Aldrin cycler is designed to
overcome those limitations. Aldrin proposed harnessing
the gravitational assists of both Earth and Mars.
Think of it as an interplanetary bus. An interplanetary
bus. I like that. This bus is a massive, heavily
shielded habitat that is put into a perpetual
figure -eight orbit between Earth and Mars. It
requires one initial large burn to set it in
motion. but then minimal propellant is needed
thereafter to maintain its path. So instead of
using fuel to constantly accelerate and decelerate,
the spacecraft uses planetary gravity as its
engine. Correct. When the cycler swings close
to Earth, a smaller conventional transfer vehicle
would launch crew and cargo onto the bus. The
cycler then carries them on its pre -calculated
trajectory to Mars, swinging close enough for
a second transfer vehicle already waiting in
Mars orbit to pick them up and take them down
to the surface. So what's the major logistical
advantage of a system like that? Consistency
and protection. The Aldrin cycler orbit provides
a remarkably consistent transit time of five
and a half months to Mars, with the return trip
on a twin cycler orbit of equal duration. And
crucially, because the cycler is so massive and
permanent, it can be heavily shielded against
cosmic radiation. Which is the single biggest
health threat to astronauts on long deep space
missions. It is. This system turns the journey
into a stable, predictable routine. This technical
solution, it really fuels his philosophy for
human spaceflight, which is highly critical of
intermediate goals. Very critical. Aldrin views
the moon as a useful training ground, but he
criticized NASA's early 2000s focus on returning
to the moon, calling it more like reaching for
past glory than striving for new triumphs. So
for him, the moon is just a point of departure,
a practice field. That's it. He believes the
true existential purpose of spaceflight is to
move beyond Earth's reliance. His ultimate vision
is for us to become a two planet species. He
views Mars not just as a destination for exploration,
but for permanent homesteading and eventual self
-sufficiency. And that mission, he argues, must
be the guiding star for all human space exploration
efforts. And he didn't just propose the concept.
He provided a detailed roadmap to make it happen.
In 2015, in collaboration with the Florida Institute
of Technology, he presented a comprehensive master
plan to NASA. It was a phased, detailed approach
and at establishing a permanent human colony
on Mars before 2040. And the plan involved long
-term crew commitment. Ten -year tours of duty
for the initial colonists, recognizing the sheer
magnitude of that psychological and physical
commitment. His enthusiasm and commitment to
exploration never waned, even pushing his own
physical boundaries in his late 80s. In December
2016, at the age of 86, He visited the Amundsen
-Scott South Pole Station in Antarctica. That
single act made him the oldest person to reach
the South Pole. He had to be medically evacuated
afterwards. But even that incident just underscores
his relentless, lifelong desire to confront and
conquer the extreme frontiers of Earth and space.
It does. And his legacy continues to be officially
recognized well into his 90s. On his 93rd birthday
in May 2023, he received some significant honors.
An honorary promotion to the rank of Brigadier
General in the U .S. Air Force. And he was also
made an honorary Space Force Guardian. And of
course, he's recognized in Masonic history as
the first Freemason to set foot on the moon.
We should also mention, purely for the sake of
factual reporting based on the sources, his political
advocacy in later life. The sources note he's
an active supporter of the Republican Party,
and he cites the promotion of proactive, ambitious
space exploration policy as the key reason for
his public endorsement of Donald Trump in 2024.
So his focus, in his own words, remain firmly
on national policies that meet enormous technological
challenges and accelerate the future of spaceflight.
His gaze remains fixed outward. What a monumental
life journey. It's defined by this recurring
theme of intellectual rigor solving an operational
crisis. We started with Edwin Eugene, the disciplined
combat pilot who found fame in a gun camera photo,
and the academic genius who was, you know, rejected
by NASA for being too brainy. He then transformed
into Dr. Rendezvous, not only designing the manual
calculations needed for orbital linkups in his
thesis, but then actually using that expertise
to manually save Gemini 12, and later... guiding
Armstrong through the LGC crisis in Apollo 11.
The man who solved the spacewalk problem with
44 handholds was just applying intellectual discipline
to physical problems. Every single time. And
then came the profound humanity of his struggles,
the depression, the alcoholism, the recovery,
proving that even achieving the greatest height
doesn't shield you from the deepest personal
challenges. His recovery became his own kind
of legacy. And his final act is the Aldrin Cycler
moving beyond Earth's orbit entirely and providing
the operational blueprint for humanity's future
on Mars. His commitment to thoroughness, from
demanding better EVA training to pioneering interstellar
travel concepts, that is the true enduring lesson.
It is. Aldrin famously summarized the lunar landscape
with two words, magnificent desolation. It was
a place of awe, but it was also a place that
was ultimately dead and empty. So given his lifelong
obsession with pushing humanity to the next frontier
to become a two -planet species, if the moon
was desolation, what new word will Aldrin's future
Mars colonist invent to describe their first
permanent human homestead on the red planet?
Something to think about as we chart that next
great leap.