Buzz Aldrin

He was married thrice; to Joan Archer with whom he had three children, James, Janice and Andrew; to Beverly Zile; and to Lois Driggs Cannon. On June 15, 2011, he filed for a divorce with Lois which was finalized on December 28, 2012.

He is an active supporter of the Republican Party of United Staes.

He was born to a career military man, Edwin Eugene Aldrin and his wife Marion (nee Moon). His father later served as an executive with the Standard Oil Company which used to provide steady and lucrative work to the ex-army officials.

In 1946, he graduated from Mont Clair high school and turned down the full scholarship offer from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He enrolled at the United States Military Academy at WestPoint and graduated third in his class with a BS in mechanical engineering.

In 1951, he was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the U.S. Air Force and served as a jet fighter pilot during the Korean War. He flew F86 Sabre jets in 66 combat missions and shot down two MIG 15 aircraft.

After the war, he was posted as an aerial gunnery instructor to Nellis Air Force base in Nevada and then as an aide to the Dean of Faculty at the US Air Force Academy which had started operating in 1955.

After a tour of duty in Germany flying F100′s, he went on to earn his Doctorate of Science in Astronautics at MIT and wrote his thesis on ‘Line-of-sight guidance techniques for manned orbital rendezvous’. On its completion, he was positioned in the Gemini target office of the Air-force State Systems Division in Los Angeles.

In 1963, he was selected by NASA into the third group of astronauts and was promoted to back-up crew for the mission along with Jim Lovell but this revised mission failed.

On November 11, 1966, he joined Lovell on the four-day Gemini 12 flight where he set a record for EVA (Extra Vehicular Activity) by demonstrating that astronauts could work outside spacecraft. He recorded a five and a half hour space-walk and proved that man can function effectively in space.

On July 21, 1969, he, along with flight commander Neil Armstrong, made their first historic Apollo 11 moonwalk becoming first two humans to set foot on the moon. They concluded their lunar surface excursion after spending 21 hours there; gathering rock samples, taking photographs, and setting up scientific equipment for tests.

In 1985, he spoke about the existence of a special spacecraft trajectory, now known as the ‘Aldrin Cycler’. This trajectory encounters Earth and Mars on a regular basis it is potentially useful for transporting people and can carry heavy radiation shielding to protect people in transit from cosmic rays and solar storms.

In 1993, he produced a computer strategy game, ‘Buzz Aldrin’s Race into Space’ to promote space exploration. For further promotion, he teamed up with rappers such as Snoop Dogg, Quincy Jones, Soulja Boys to create the rap single and video ‘Rocket experience’.

He wrote two biographies, ‘Return to Earth’, and Magnificent Desolation: The Long Journey Home from the Moon’. He also wrote a history of the Apollo program, ‘Men from Earth’ and two children’s books, ‘Reaching for the Moon’ and ‘Look to the Stars’.