Neil and Buzz
an Unlikely Duo
-- Special to ABCNEWS.com
They're so different, it's surprising that Neil Armstrong and
Buzz Aldrin didn't come to blows before their cramped lunar
lander touched down on Tranquility Base 30 years ago.
In the years since, they've dealt with the burden of fame
in very different ways.
During my interview with Armstrong a few weeks after the
moon landing, he seemed aloof and very uncomfortable with
his celebrity status, coming across as somewhat of a
patrician. I was a young reporter who had never talked with a
man from the moon; he was simply a man willing to let his
deeds speak for themselves.
It's little wonder that in the years since Apollo 11, he's
avoided the spotlight.
Buzz — his legal name for the last 20 years — is another
story.
As the son of a pioneer aviator who helped Robert
Goddard design rockets to carry Americans into space, Buzz
seemed destined for greatness. Being a member of the first crew
to land on the moon seemed natural. But being the second
man — not the first — to step onto its dusty surface may have
been a little harder to stomach than even he realized.
Buzz, a true superachiever, was never comfortable with
second place. That kind of drive gave him the edge to shoot
down two MiGs in the Korean War, and then go on to earn a
doctorate in astronautics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Several years ago, I was looking for a seat in a crowded
auditorium when I heard someone shouting my name from
across the room. Startled, I looked up to see someone
shaking his fist at me. It was Buzz Aldrin.
We had spent several hours together a few days earlier,
discussing a proposal for a shuttle system that would ferry
people between Mars and Earth, much like a tugboat in a
busy harbor. He also thought he could build a better space
station than the one NASA was proposing then. He was
passionate about his ideas, and quite frankly, some of them
seemed more realistic to him than they did to me.
Wanting Press
Buzz was mad that I hadn't managed to get his ideas on
the front page of the Los Angeles Times, where I
worked at the time. It was a difficult time for Aldrin, who
had struggled with a number of personal demons (which
should remain private) since the moon landing.
A number of astronauts have struggled to regain a
sense of normalcy after adventures the rest of us can only
dream of. It's probably a bit like winning the lottery and then
wondering what you're going to do when the money doesn't
solve all your problems.
In time, Buzz got it all together. Today he runs his own
company, Starcraft Enterprises, and plans to someday
transport tourists to space. It's a bold concept, but nothing
less than that would appeal to a man whose notch in history
is secure.
Exit Row?
These days, Buzz seems comfortable with who he is.
Rumors were rampant in the early days that, because of
the seating arrangements in the lunar lander, Buzz should
have stepped out of the vehicle first, but he was out
maneuvered during the planning stage by Armstrong, the
spacecraft commander. I asked him once if the rumors were
true.
He looked at me as though I had just arrived from another
planet. "Never heard that," he said, dismissing the rumors as
so much, well, horse droppings.
Armstrong seems a bit drab by comparison. After Apollo
11 he served briefly in a high-level position in NASA, and two
years after the mission he returned to his home state of Ohio
as professor of aerospace engineering at the University of
Cincinnati.
A veteran of 78 combat missions over Korea, Armstrong
increasingly turned his attention to the board room, serving
as a director for several corporations. He has rarely ventured
into the spotlight, except to serve on various commissions,
including the body charged with investigating the 1986
Challenger disaster.
Way Out of the Limelight
He has been heard from so rarely that sometimes it seems
like he came back from the moon and fell off the Earth.
He recognized the dangers inherent in achieving
something early in his life that will eclipse anything else he is
ever likely to do.
Aldrin and Armstrong were 39 years old when the Eagle
settled down in a sea of dust with only 30 seconds of landing
fuel left. That leaves a lot of years to reminisce.
Armstrong took his marbles and went home, venturing
into the public arena only when pressed.
Buzz is eager for another game.
It hasn't been all that easy for either of them. Celebrity
status brings a lot of baggage, and these two men, after all,
are just a couple of engineers who carved a benchmark in
human history.
A few thousand years from now, people will still be talking
about these two guys who took us to the moon.
Lee Dye's column appears Wednesdays on
ABCNEWS.com. A former science writer for the Los
Angeles Times, he now lives in Juneau, Alaska.
Copyright 1999 ABC News Internet Ventures
July 23, 1999