Biography

Aldrin's mother's maiden name was Moon.

Had his first name legally changed to "Buzz".

Astronaut, second man on the moon.

Wrote a memoir "Magnificent Desolation" (2009), telling in detail his problems after his return from the moon with divorce, drinking, depression, and despair and checking into rehab in 1975 where he started the long climb back to sobriety and hope.

He, Neil Armstrong and Mike Collins were awarded a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for Television at 7021 Hollywood Boulevard and Vine Street in Hollywood, California.

[on joining Neil Armstrong in first walk on the moon, 20 July 1969] Beautiful! Beautiful! Magnificent desolation!

[on why no famous photos were taken of Neil Armstrong during the Apollo 11 landing on the moon] As the sequence of lunar operations evolved, Neil had the camera most of the time, and the majority of pictures taken on the moon that include an astronaut are of me. It wasn't until we were back on Earth and in the lunar receiving laboratory looking over the pictures that we realized there were few pictures of Neil. My fault, perhaps, but we had never simulated this in our training.

There's a need for accepting responsibility - for a person's life and making choices that are not just ones for immediate short-term comfort. You need to make an investment, and the investment is in health and education.

We can continue to try and clean up the gutters all over the world and spend all of our resources looking at just the dirty spots and trying to make them clean. Or we can lift our eyes up and look into the skies and move forward in an evolutionary way.

I think humans will reach Mars, and I would like to see it happen in my lifetime.