July 20, 2023 is the 54th anniversary of the landing of Apollo 11 on the Sea of Tranquility; history's first people to visit the moon. The three astronauts were command module pilot Michael Collins who never went down to the lunar surface, mission commander Neil Armstrong, the first man to set foot on the moon, and lunar module pilot Buzz Aldrin, the second man on the moon. Buzz Aldrin is the only surviving member of the three today, at 93.
In the lead-in to a biography of Buzz, Space.com notes, “He may have been second on the moon, but when it comes to historic impact and cultural significance, Buzz Aldrin is second to none.”
It's an interesting read.
Most people are aware that after the mission, without that incredible goal to be focused on, Buzz went through some tough times in life.
In his memoir, titled "Magnificent Desolation: The Long Journey Home from the Moon" (Bloomsbury, 2009), Aldrin compares his state of mind after returning to Earth to his response to viewing the moon's landscape for the first time. He was unable to describe the magnitude of the experience, leading to depression and alcohol dependence.
"I wanted to resume my duties, but there were no duties to resume," Aldrin said in the book. "There was no goal, no sense of calling, no project worth pouring myself into."
Encouraged by then-girlfriend Beverly Van Zile, Aldrin checked into an alcohol rehabilitation center in August 1975. The 28-day stint was enough to make Aldrin realize the depth of his issues but did not prevent further relapses, according to Biography.com. Aldrin would give up alcohol for good in October 1978.
In 1998, Aldrin founded the ShareSpace Foundation, now called the Aldrin Family Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting the expansion of crewed space exploration.
Buzz Aldrin salutes as he stands next to a picture of himself on the moon during a tour of the Apollo 11 exhibit at the Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum in Yorba Linda, CA, on Tuesday, July 23, 2019. (Image credit: Jeff Gritchen, Orange County Register/SCNG via Getty Images)
Eric Berger starts the weekly Ars Technica Rocket Report with an acknowledgement of his own:
Today marks the 54th anniversary of the Apollo 11 landing on the Moon. For decades this has meant a time to reflect on the glories of the past. But finally, with the Artemis Program, we can also look forward with hope about what is coming. That is something I am thankful for.
Eric has said before that he remembered seeing the Apollo missions as a child and was always hoping to see us return to moon. I was 15 during Apollo 11 and likewise have long been waiting for some of those things to happen again. I'm not as confident as he appears to be that Artemis is the way back to the moon, and that it will happen. Why? As of now, the date of the first landing, Artemis III, is set to be in 2026. Start with the program's extremely low launch cadence: two years from Artemis I to Artemis II (2024) and very likely another two years to Artemis III, couple that with talk that NASA's budget is being cut and it just seems it will take longer than they predict. Have any Artemis milestones ever been completed on time and under budget?
SiG, so glad you - among so few - remember July 20th as a big deal.. It sure is for me. On that day, Dad drove us up from Miami and we watched the launch from a beach area close to where we were to watch the launches of Apollo 8 and 10. Not many people now care about what happened then, and there's close to zero civilian buzz about Artemis, except maybe a yawn and, "yeah, that'll be kinda cool if we go back to the moon." Right.
ReplyDeleteWhat I find genuinely disturbing is the number of adult Americans (not our age) who question that we went to the moon, or that there was ever an actual space program at all. To all of us that were alive and riveted by the actual events that were The Space Race, congrats. We MIGHT just live long enough to see American boots back on lunar soil. Thanks for keeping the flame burning, SiG.
Thanks for the comment. One of my memories from first grade was being herded to the cafeteria to watch the first Mercury missions on the only couple of black and white TVs the school had. I was pretty much following the space program from then through the last days of Apollo.
DeleteApollo 11 was during the last family vacation we'd ever take together. My folks moved to Miami from New York (which I'm more grateful for every day) and we were going up to visit family. I watched the launch from a motel in Virginia and watched the first moon walk from my uncle's house.
Growing up in Miami, missions were only visible if you knew where to look, and had a good horizon. Nobody ever talked about seeing one. I think I saw Apollo 17, the only night launch, but I'm not really sure. My parents took us up here for the tour, but I never saw a launch until I moved here.
We went to the neighbor's house in Santa Maria to watch the launch on Color TV!!!! (one of those big console jobbies. soooo cool.)
ReplyDeleteWe watched the landing on our Black and White tv.
Sooo cool.
Dad was part of the program, working with range tracking ships. He knew a lot of the Apollo astronauts. And he was given one of those coin sets from Apollo 11.
Nowadays, the more I think about it, the more I put my hopes in SpaceX going it alone. I think they can do it.
Be hilarioius if a private flight made it to the moon.
My favorite Buzz incident after the landing? Him punching the living snot out of the moon landing denier that accosted him. Could put that on a loop and watch it over and over.
Back around '90, the guy whose office was across the hall from mine was a graybeard mechanical engineer. He had worked for Grumman on Long Island, and was there during some of the Apollo missions on his first job out of school. The LEM was their baby. He had some interesting stories.
DeleteWhenever something went wrong and NASA pulled together a Tiger Team, they'd get some of his coworkers involved. Sitting here now, I'm not sure I remember anything well enough to relay!
I share Beans' epicaricacy at that confrontation.
DeleteIMHO, that was the moment that marked Buzz as one of the Truly Great Men of the entire U.S. space program.
I only wish he'd given the mealy-mouthed s.o.b. a few more licks for Grissom, Chafee, and White after the initial clock-cleaning.
And then gone after the jackholes who wrote Capricorn One. Either in scathing print responses, pugilistically, or ideally, both.
Some people's IQ would go up twenty points if they just got their noses broken a time or three, and the rest would at least deserve every bit of pain received, regardless.
The SpaceX colonists will arrive in their electric pickup truck and throw the Artemis visitors an arrival ceremony/party.
ReplyDeleteCan't believe that I fell for this lie as long as I did.
ReplyDeleteWhat lie? That the US landed on the Moon? Not a lie. That we created the largest rocket to launch in less than 10 years from program inception (didn't hurt that many of the pieces used, from rocket engines to rockets, were already being designed)? That the astronauts in Apollo 1 were burnt to a crisp?
DeleteWhat lie?
Tell us.
My dad used to get physically angry, to the point of threatening violence, to people who said Apollo 1 was a lie. He knew all three. He knew people who worked the scene, cleaning, reconstructing, figuring out what was wrong (just the use of the wire and a 100% O2 environment, same as used for Mercury and Gemini, meant we were lucky we didn't lose more astronauts. The fire on the pad was an extremely lucky event as we were able to do a forensic analysis of actual pieces, rather than trying to recreate from telemetry only.
What proof do you have? The 'lack of stars in the background? That's been debunked and disproven from about 10 seconds after that stupid lie appeared, as the exposure to show the astronauts and the surface of the Moon had to be turned down due to the huge glare caused by no atmosphere.
The flag waving in the breeze at liftoff of the ascent module of the LEM? Dude, the engine provided the 'atmosphere' that caused the breeze.
'We couldn't build anything that sophisticated at the time'? Germany created an advanced MRBM while getting the snot bombed out of it. 10 years before Apollo 11 the Oxcart/SR71 was designed. Heck, by 1960 the X-15 was breaking the Karman barrier.
@Anon 9:51P,
DeleteDemand an immediate refund of your entire primary and secondary education costs.
You were defrauded.
I was excited yet solemn to see Virgil's spacesuit at a Boyscout Jamboree. This after the tragedy. Judging by the suit, he was short in stature.
ReplyDeleteDecades later I met Neal. I babysat his house while he was off to somewhere in the world. People paid him handsomly for his brilliant mind.
His was the first sailboat I'd seen, let alone board, which was electric everything - sit, enjoy, don't touch anything. He designed the circuity himself.
I watched the moon landing at summer school. It was a really big deal! We felt a part of it just by watching it. A proud moment.
All the original Mercury Astronauts were about the same size, and slightly under the average. There was only so much room in the capsule for the meat component.
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