

Buzz Aldrin: The Dark Side of the Moon - Thevet
http://www.gq.com/entertainment/celebrities/201501/buzz-aldrin

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jowiar

        Buzz is tired. Buzz is so tired of these moon-wisdom questions, 
        nearly a half century of the same questions about feelings that 
        leave him feeling inadequate. He is a man of science. Next time 
        NASA should send up a poet, he wrote in one of his books, a 
        philosopher, an artist, a journalist. He wasn't being flip. He 
        thought mankind clearly needed to send up people who know how to 
        translate feelings.
    

A lesson most of us in "tech" could use to learn.

~~~
WalterBright
The same thing happened to Lindbergh - he wanted to move on, but the public
was relentless in never allowing it.

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fogleman
Neil and Buzz spent 2.5 hours walking around on the moon, in a very small
region. In comparison, Apollo 17's surface EVA time was 22 hours - driving a
lunar rover many miles. Seems like we should be talking to the astronauts in
the later missions if we want to hear about what it's like to be on the moon.

~~~
sumedh
I was actually shocked when I learned that other people went to the moon as
well. For a long I used to believe that Neil and Buzz were the only 2 people
who walked on the moon.

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justboxing
> His father never accepted the fact that Buzz was not number one. Grasping,
> his father waged an unsuccessful one-man campaign to get the U.S. Postal
> Service to change its Neil Armstrong

> "First Man on the Moon" commemorative stamp to one that said

> "First Men on the Moon" so it could include Buzz.

Wow. I always wondered what it was like, to be the "2nd Man on the Moon.".

In Sports, Athletic Competitions and many other situations in life, it's only
the 1st place winner that people remember.

~~~
WalterBright
As far as I'm concerned, Buzz and Neil landed on the moon at the same time, so
they are both first.

~~~
pm90
Absolutely. Honestly, the part about people forgetting the names of 2nd and
3rd ones on the moon makes no sense now in this age of internet and Wikipedia.

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CamperBob2
Good article, and it was nice to see the journalist take the high road by not
fixating on (or even mentioning) Buzz's altercation with the conspiracy
nutcase outside his hotel. It's also a pretty depressing read. As the article
suggests, it seems likely that NASA made the right call by putting Armstrong
in the #1 position, because being #1 would likely have destroyed Buzz.

All I'd have to say to Buzz Aldrin or anyone else from the Apollo program is,
"Sorry we dropped the ball you handed us."

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jgrahamc
If you want to know more read Aldrin's book "Magnificent Desolation". Pretty
dark story at times.

~~~
pcardoso
His sci-fi book "Encounter with Tiber" was pretty neat. Loved it, and it had
me hooked the whole time.

Michael Collins "Carrying the fire" was also a very good book. Collins is a
great writer with a great subject.

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bbuffone
I got to see the Saturn V rocket at the Johnson Space Center on Saturday. It
is the most incredible piece technology i have ever seen. Luckily I was
standing next to a guy whose father worked on the apollo space program; while
the astronauts got all the glory. The pride of everyone involved is immense
and should be celebrated.

~~~
jballer
Look up the documentary series "Moon Machines" \- it does an amazing job of
telling numerous stories of the engineering feats behind the Appllo project,
with first-hand accounts and some pretty awesome B-roll from the archives

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Bluestrike2
I can't imagine how painful it has to be to be known for an achievement the
rest of the country has effectively abandoned for decades. Every single time
someone runs up to ask him "what was it like on the moon?" must be like a
knife to the gut, a painful reminder of what we've willingly given up.

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marlinspire
"Recently Buzz had a hard time getting anyone at the White House to answer his
calls about maybe doing a ceremony or something to commemorate the forty-fifth
anniversary of his moon walk. (Eventually they pulled a little something
together.) "

This, if true, is disgusting, a disgrace, nationally and globally.

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apurvadave
Pretty sad that the media chews up and spits out guys like Buzz.

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dangayle
This was published in January, and look at all the Mars mission stuff that has
popped up since. I wonder what a follow up would read like? I'm guessing
they're using his Mars algorithm?

~~~
HillRat
Those Aldrin Cyclers are kind of a strange beast -- possibly useful in a
speculative-fiction kind of way, but take more delta-v than a Hohmann transfer
orbit and have a very high relative velocity as they pass Earth and Mars,
which makes getting cargo to them tricky (the "taxis" have to make a
hyperbolic rendezvous with the cycler, and a missed encounter would likely
result in a very long tour of the solar system). Instead, NASA envisions using
near-Hohmann orbits for getting advanced cargo to Mars; human travel would use
the usual hyperbolic transfer orbit.

~~~
maaku
Most people outside of NASA still consider a standard Hohmann-like orbit for
getting people to Mars too.

