How Does Buzz Aldrin Work?

is based on How Stuffworks. Spoke with space historian and author Rod Pyle, who's met and interviewed Aldren a number of times and never ceases to be amazed by the former astronaut's active engagement with the future of spaceflight, especially as he's now ninety three years old. Pyle said, he stands Ramrod straight, and he's full of energy and ideas. Buzz thinks more clearly about the stuff than people my

age times three. Born Edwin Eugene Aldrin Junior in Montclair, New Jersey, in January of nine, teen thirty, Aldren earned his famous nickname from his little sister Feyanne, who called him Buzzer instead of brother. He legally changed it to Buzz in the early nineteen eighties. In a bit of poetic foreshadowing, Aldren's mother's maiden name was Marion Moon. Aldrin was a stellar athlete and a straight A student, graduating

one year early from high school. His father, a colonel in the Air Force and himself an aviation pioneer, had high expectations for Buzz and secured him a spot at the Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland. But Aldren wanted to go to West Point, says Pyle, because that's where the

flying was happening. After graduating third in his class from West Point with a degree in mechanical engineering, Aldren enlisted in the Air Force and shipped off to the Korean War, where he flew sixty six combat missions and earned the Distinguished Flying Cross. Aldren learned about the fledgling astronaut program from Ed White, who he met during a tour of duty flying F one hundreds in Germany. A Buzz wanted in, but NASA was excluded recruiting test pilots, not combat pilots,

and the space organization rejected Aldron's first application. Not to be deterred, Aldron figured out another way. In he knew that one of the biggest engineering unknowns of spaceflight was how to dock with another vehicle in orbit, so he decided to become an expert in that. He earned a PhD from MIT in astronautics with a thesis titled A

Line of Sight Guidance Techniques for Manned Orbital Rendezvous. When he applied to NASA a second time in nineteen sixty three, Aldrin won a spot and became the first astronaut with a doctoral degree. His fellow astronauts called him Doctor Rendezvous. At NASA, Aldron lived up to his nickname, taking command of the rendezvous and docking preparations for the Gemini missions. His first spaceflight was Gemini twelve, the very last Gemini

mission before the launch of the Apollo program. He and James Lovell rocketed into orbit on November eleventh of nineteen six with two critical missions, docked with the Agena spacecraft and conduct the longest spacewalk to date. That first task might have been a failure if not for Aldrin's speedy math skills. The astronauts were approaching the Agena about seventy five miles or two hundred kilometers out and closing fast

when their computerized tracking system went down. Luckily for NASA, one of the men on the Gemni twelve crew had spent the last six years calculating orbital trajectories. Pile said, for a lot of people that would have been a mission ender, but Buzz pulled out a sextant, a pencil, a pad of paper, and a slide rule and calculated the trajectory by hand. They rendez food and docked with the Agena, using less fuel than anybody had previously using computers.

Then came the spacewalk A, known in NASA parlance as extra vehicular activity or EVA A. Pile says that previous spacewalks hadn't gone as planned. Astronaut Gene Cernan almost didn't make it back from his Gemini nine eva A, suffering from poor visibility through a fogged adviser, no handholds on

the ship's exterior, and dangerous levels of exhaustion. A Gemini twelve was NASA's last chance before Apollo to prove its astronauts could make critical repairs in orbit, but Aldrin didn't think the top brass was taking it seriously enough to prepare for his EVA. Aldrin was one of the first

astronauts to use underwater training extensively. Pile says that NASA didn't have its own neutral buoyancy pool yet, so they sunk pieces of the Gemini trainer in the deep end of a pool at a private boys' school in Maryland. A Pile said, Buzz was a scuba enthusiast, so he just poured himself into the training and was there all the time. He was really aggressive about it. All that preparation paid off. Aldron spent more than five hours conducting

spacewalks on the Gemini twelve mission. He moved around the ship effortlessly thanks to special handholds and foot restraints that Aldrin himself had designed. He performed tes maneuvers with tools, and even cleaned the windows for fun. Buzz was so relaxed outside the capsule that he even snapped the very first space selfie. He brought his clunky camera out during the first EVA and pointed it at Earth, joking to

mission control, Okay, tell everyone down there to smile. Then he balanced the camera on the edge of his hatch and aimed it at himself. Now let me raise my visor and all smile, said Aldron. Posing for these slightly awkward but historic selfie. After Gemini twelve, Aldrin was slotted for Apollo eleven, along with Neil Armstrong and Michael Collins.

Pile explains that Dieke Slayton, who was in charge of scheduling astronauts NASA at the time, swore that it was simply the bluck of the draw that Aldrin and Armstrong were picked for Apollo eleven, and that Armstrong was the first step foot on the lunar soil. Pile said those guys were both uniquely qualified. A Buzz was the orbital

dynamics guy who figured out the EVA. Neil was the incredible X fifteen pilot who was known for extreme flying skills if you read between the lines, though, and Neil is the guy with almost no ego and best suited to be the first on the Moon. There was pushing and pulling up until the last few months about who

was going to be out first. Aldrin's father really wanted his son to be the first human on the moon, and Buzz lobbied hard for the honor, arguing that his position in the lunar module offered easier access to the hatch. But once NASA shows Neil Pile says Buzz swallowed his pride and dutifully executed the mission. While Armstrong's one small step for Man quote has been immortalized, Aldren's description as he took his own first steps on the Moon was poetic.

He said, beautiful, beautiful, magnificent desolation. Returning home, Aldron and the Apollo eleven crew were celebrated as global heroes. A Pile explained that of the three, while Buzz eventually ridged his fame the most, he wasn't prepared for the rebound effect. After such an intense emotional high. How do you follow that? Pyle said, he descended into a deep depression. Buzz talks openly about this in his memoir Returned to Earth. His

first marriage failed, he had a drinking problem. Money was tight. At one point he was actually selling used cars to make ends meet, but then Aldron found sobriety and his post NASA calling. He spent every day of the past four decades promoting the future of crude spaceflight. And who better than Buzz Aldrin Apollo eleven hero to make the

case for humankind's return to the Moon and beyond. Aldron isn't just a rocket booster if you'll forgive the pun, he's very much still an engineer and adventurer at heart. In the nineteen nineties, Buzz developed an ingenious scheme for transporting astronauts to Mars called the Aldron Mars Cycler. The cycler is a hypothetical cross between a space station and a space craft continuously orbit the Sun in a path

that periodically intersects with each the Earth and Mars. Astronauts could shuttle to and from the cycler without burning too much fuel. Buzz also launched the Aldron Family Foundation with his son Andrew to help inspire and prepare the next generation of astronauts through steam education that is, science, technology, engineering, arts,

and mathematics. He was also a twenty ten contestant on Dancing with the Stars at age eighty and recorded a semi satirical rap called Rocket Experience with Snoop Dogg around the same time, and of course, he lent his name to Buzz light Year. In the Toy Story series, A Pile described a phone conversation with Aldrin as the equivalent of sitting in on a graduate level course in aerospace engineering. He said, Buzz has a plan for everything. You do.

Get the sense that there's three or four brilliant minds in there, all competing for the same mount and that's just how smart he is and how driven he is. Today's episode is based on the article second to None. Here's the Buzz on buzz Aldrin on HowStuffWorks dot Com, written by Dave Ruse. The brain Stuff is production by

Heart Radio in partnership with how stuffworks dot Com. It is produced by Tyler klang A. Four more podcasts from my heart Radio visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.