He was commissioned as a second lieutenant, and underwent basic flight training in T-6 Texans at Bartow Air Base in Florida. He chose the United States Air Force, which had become a separate service in 1947 while Aldrin was still at West Point and did not yet have its own academy. Military careerĪmong the top of his class, Aldrin had his choice of assignments. On June 5, 1951, Aldrin graduated third in the class of 1951 with a Bachelor of Science degree in mechanical engineering. During the trip, the Korean War broke out. In 1950, he traveled with a group of West Point cadets to Japan and the Philippines to study the military government policies of Douglas MacArthur.
Aldrin was also an excellent athlete, competing in pole vault for the academy track and field team. He did well academically, finishing first in his class his plebe (first) year. He faced down his father and told him to ask Hawkes to change the nomination to the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York. He suffered from seasickness and considered ships a distraction from flying airplanes. Aldrin attended Severn School in 1946, but had other ideas about his future career. Hawkes, one of the United States senators from New Jersey. His father wanted him to go to the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland and enrolled him at nearby Severn School, a preparatory school for Annapolis and even secured him a Naval Academy appointment from Albert W. He played football and was the starting center for Montclair High School's undefeated 1946 state champion team. Īldrin did well in school, maintaining an A average. He was a Boy Scout, achieving the rank of Tenderfoot Scout. His nickname, which became his legal first name in 1988, arose as a result of Fay's mispronouncing "brother" as "buzzer", which was then shortened to "Buzz".
Aldrin had two sisters: Madeleine, who was four years older, and Fay Ann, who was a year and a half older. His father was an Army aviator during World War I and the assistant commandant of the Army's test pilot school at McCook Field, Ohio, from 1919 to 1922, but left the Army in 1928 and became an executive at Standard Oil. and Marion Aldrin ( née Moon), lived in neighboring Montclair. on January 20, 1930, at Mountainside Hospital in Glen Ridge, New Jersey. He has been accorded numerous honors, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1969.Īldrin was born Edwin Eugene Aldrin Jr. Aldrin continues to advocate for space exploration, particularly a human mission to Mars, and developed the Aldrin cycler, a special spacecraft trajectory that makes travel to Mars more efficient in terms of time and propellant. His autobiographies Return to Earth (1973), and Magnificent Desolation (2009), recount his struggles with clinical depression and alcoholism in the years after leaving NASA. He retired from the Air Force in 1972, after 21 years of service. Leaving NASA in 1971 Aldrin became Commandant of the U.S. Kennedy "of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth" before the end of the decade. Apollo 11 effectively proved US victory in the Space Race, by fulfilling a national goal proposed in 1961 by President John F. A Presbyterian elder, Aldrin became the first person to hold a religious ceremony on the Moon when he privately took communion. Three years later, Aldrin set foot on the Moon at 03:15:16 on J( UTC), nineteen minutes after Armstrong first touched the surface, while command module pilot Michael Collins remained in lunar orbit. His first space flight was in 1966 on Gemini 12 during which he spent over five hours on extravehicular activity. His doctoral thesis was Line-of-Sight Guidance Techniques for Manned Orbital Rendezvous, earning him the nickname "Dr.
He flew 66 combat missions and shot down two MiG-15 aircraft.Īfter earning a Doctor of Science degree in astronautics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Aldrin was selected as a member of NASA's Astronaut Group 3, making him the first astronaut with a doctoral degree. He was commissioned into the United States Air Force, and served as a jet fighter pilot during the Korean War. As the Lunar Module Eagle pilot on the 1969 Apollo 11 mission, he and mission commander Neil Armstrong were the first two people to land on the Moon.īorn in Glen Ridge, New Jersey, Aldrin graduated third in the class of 1951 from the United States Military Academy at West Point, with a degree in mechanical engineering. He made three spacewalks as pilot of the 1966 Gemini 12 mission. January 20, 1930) is an American former astronaut, engineer and fighter pilot. Buzz Aldrin ( / ˈ ɔː l d r ɪ n/ born Edwin Eugene Aldrin Jr.
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