Portal:Spaceflight/Selected biography/July 2009

Buzz Aldrin (born Edwin Eugene Aldrin, Jr., January 20, 1930) is an American aviator and astronaut who was the Lunar Module pilot on Apollo 11, the first lunar landing, and the second person to set foot on the Moon. His mission commander Neil Armstrong was the first.

Aldrin was born in Glen Ridge, New Jersey, to Edwin Eugene Aldrin, Sr. and his wife Marion Moon. He is of Scottish and Swedish ancestry. After graduating from Montclair High School in Montclair, New Jersey in 1946, Aldrin went to the US Military Academy at West Point. The nickname "Buzz" originated in childhood: his little sister mispronounced "brother" as "buzzer", and this was shortened to Buzz. Aldrin made it his legal first name in 1988.

He was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant in the U.S. Air Force and served as a jet fighter pilot during the Korean War. Aldrin was selected as part of the third group of NASA astronauts in October 1963. After the deaths of the original Gemini 9 prime crew, Elliot See and Charles Bassett, Aldrin was promoted from the missions backup crew, and flew the mission in 1966. He later piloted Gemini 12, on which he performed an extra-vehicular activity. On Aldrin's third flight, Apollo 11, he was Lunar Module pilot, and became the second man to walk on the Moon on 21 July 1969. Aldrin retired from active duty In March 1972, after 21 years of service. (more...)