Buzz Aldrin

5th Period

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On January 20, 1930 in Glen Ridge, New Jersey, Buzz Aldrin was born.

He graduated from Montclair High School in 1946 then went to the U.S. Military Academy in West Point. His first name was actually not originally Buzz, it was Edwin Eugene. When he was a kid, the youngest of his two big sisters said “Buzzer” instead of “brother”. The name stuck and was later shortened to Buzz, which he legally made his first name in 1979. Buzz became a mechanical engineer and a United States Air Force pilot then of course he became an astronaut. ! Buzz graduated third in his class from West Point with a Bachelor of

Science in mechanical engineering. The U. S. Air Force commissioned him as a Second Lieutenant where he served as a jet fighter pilot in the Korean War, supposedly flying 66 combat missions. He went on to do many more things in the military before he earned his Doctor of Science in astronautics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He worked in the Gemini Target Office before he got selected as an astronaut.

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Buzz was selected to be the Lunar Module Pilot on Apollo 11. Apollo 11

was the first ever manned lunar landing and on July 20, 1969, Buzz was the second human to ever set foot on the moon right behind Neil Armstrong. A few minutes after landing on the moon, Aldrin decided that the most appropriate thing to do was to take communion. NASA allowed the astronauts to bring a small bag of personal items with them and Buzz brought in his a communion wafer and a small vial of communion wine consecrated by his pastor at home. He radioed back to Mission Control back in Houston with this: “I’d like to take this opportunity to ask every person listening in, whoever and wherever they may be, to pause for a moment and contemplate the events of the past few hours and to give thanks in his or her own way.” NASA officials were