Buzz Aldrin: Moon desolate, but magnificent

DAYTON, Ohio – Buzz Aldrin still has the felt-tipped pen he used as a makeshift switch needed to fire up the engines that lifted him and fellow Apollo 11 astronaut Neil Armstrong off the moon and started their safe return to Earth nearly 40 years ago.

“The pen and the circuit breaker (switch) are in my possession because we do get a few memorabilia to kind of symbolize things that happened,” Aldrin told reporters Friday.

As stunningly successful as the first trip to the moon was in July 1969, a few things didn’t quite go as planned.

For example, Aldrin said, there were some puzzling computer overloads, but they proved to be minor and had no effect on the landing.

When the designated landing zone on the moon’s surface proved to be too rocky, the astronauts had to burn additional fuel to find a safe spot to touch down. By the time they did, they had less than 20 seconds of fuel left. Running out of fuel would have forced them to abort the landing or risk a rough one.

“We did run low on fuel,” Aldrin recalled. “It’s surprising what you can do in 30 seconds. You can get an awful lot done if you have to.”

Following the moonwalk and the astronauts’ return to the lunar module on the moon’s surface, Aldrin discovered that the switch to the circuit breaker that sent electricity to the engine that would lift them off had broken off.

“If you couldn’t push it in, then maybe we had a problem,” Aldrin recalled.

Aldrin pulled the pen from his shoulder pocket, inserted it into the small hole where the switch should have been, and the circuit breaker held. The engines fired, and the two astronauts were on their way back.

Aldrin, 79, spoke Friday at a bookstore in the Dayton suburb of Beavercreek, where he autographed copies of his new book: “Magnificent Desolation: The Long Journey Home from the Moon.”

Aldrin and 11 other Apollo astronauts were scheduled to be honored Friday night at the National Aviation Hall of Fame in Dayton.

Aldrin told the bookstore crowd that the moon is a desolate place, but magnificent in the sense that it came to symbolize what humanity is capable of achieving.

“The climax maybe of my life was landing on the moon with Neil,” Aldrin said. “And landing is more important than walking around outside, despite what everybody wants to think. Landing opens the door to do everything else that had never been done before.”

Apollo astronauts’ reunion

In Dayton, Ohio, it was a reunion of reunions and 12 Apollo astronauts reminisced, traded stories and poked fun at each other Friday night as the 40th anniversary of the first moon landing and moonwalk approached.

The astronauts, including first moonmen Armstrong and Aldrin, attended the ceremony in which the National Aviation Hall of Fame presented the Apollo crews with the “Spirit of Flight” award for their courage and dedication.

The crowd of hundreds at the National Museum of the United States Air Force erupted in cheers when a video chronicling the space program replayed Armstrong’s famous first words after stepping on the moon July 20, 1969: “One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.”

“It was spectacular,” Armstrong recalled of gazing at the moon’s surface as he took those first steps. “Any time you go to a place where everything you see is different than anything you’ve ever seen before in your life, it’s unique and it’s memorable. And that certainly was.”

However, Armstrong said he and Aldrin had little time to savor the experience. “We didn’t rest hardly five seconds when we got a message from Mission Control, saying get on with the next item,” Armstrong said.

Armstrong said he had been a backup on Apollo 8 and that when he wasn’t needed was asked if he wanted to be on the third mission down the line – what turned out to be the fateful Apollo 11 mission. He said it was difficult to predict the exact mission of succeeding flights. – AP