Buzz Aldrin Biography

Edwin Eugene ‘Buzz’ Aldrin Jr. is an American astronaut and the second person to walk on the moon. Since his childhood days, he seemed destined to be an aviator and entered the Air Force after his graduation from West Point Military Academy where he flew 66 combat missions in Korea during the war. After the cease fire between North and South Korea, Aldrin enrolled at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, earning his PhD in Aeronautics and astronautics. He developed a thesis which focused on rendezvousing piloted spacecraft and soon entered the space program where he relied on his doctoral studies to create docking and rendezvous techniques for spacecrafts. He also pioneered underwater training techniques, which simulated zero-gravity situations and helped astronauts prepare to work in space. Aldrin served as a lunar module pilot for the Apollo 11 mission to the moon, travelling with Commander Neil Armstrong and Command Module Pilot Michael Collins. On his return from the mission, he was decorated with the ‘Presidential Medal of Freedom’, the highest American peacetime award. In recent years, Aldrin continued expansion of the space programs specifically calling for a return to moon and manned visits to Mars.