Buzz Aldrin

Hello! My name is Buzz Aldrin, and I’m one of the first people to ever walk on the Moon. I was born Edwin Eugene Aldrin Jr. on January 20th, 1930, in Montclair, New Jersey. You might wonder where I got my nickname. It came from my little sister, who tried to say the word 'brother,' but it came out sounding like 'buzzer.' Pretty soon, everyone in my family was calling me Buzz, and the name stuck! My father was a pilot in the army, and from a very young age, I was completely fascinated with flying. I spent hours building model airplanes and dreaming of the day I could soar through the clouds myself.

When I grew up, I decided to make that dream come true. I went to a famous military school called West Point, and I graduated in 1951. After that, I joined the United States Air Force and became a fighter pilot. I even flew jet airplanes in the Korean War. But as much as I loved flying, I wanted to go even higher—all the way into outer space! To become an astronaut, I knew I needed to learn a lot more. I went back to school and studied hard, earning a special doctorate degree in astronautics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1963. My studies made me an expert in something called 'space rendezvous,' which is the tricky process of how two spacecraft meet up and connect while flying in space. All my hard work paid off when NASA chose me to become an astronaut in October of 1963.

Before I could go to the Moon, I needed to practice living and working in space. In November of 1966, I got my chance on the Gemini 12 mission. My crewmate was another astronaut named James Lovell. During that mission, I performed three spacewalks. This meant I actually went outside our spaceship while it was orbiting Earth! I was connected by a special cord called a tether, and I floated in the quiet, blackness of space. It was an incredible feeling, almost like swimming in a giant pool with no water. By spending hours working outside the capsule, I helped prove that astronauts could handle difficult tasks in space, which was a very important step for the missions that were still to come.

Then, the biggest mission of my life arrived: Apollo 11. My crewmates, Neil Armstrong and Michael Collins, and I were going to attempt the first-ever landing on the Moon! We launched into space aboard a powerful rocket on July 16th, 1969. The journey took four days. On July 20th, Neil and I climbed into our smaller spacecraft, the lunar module, which we had named the Eagle. We separated from Michael, who stayed in orbit around the Moon, and began our descent to the surface. The landing was tense, with alarms going off, but Neil was a great pilot and guided us to a safe spot. A few hours later, Neil opened the hatch and became the first person to step on the Moon. I followed him down the ladder and became the second. The ground was covered in a fine, gray dust, like powder. When I looked up, the sky was a deep, inky black, and I could see our beautiful, blue Earth hanging in space. It was a magnificent sight I will never forget.

After our amazing journey to the Moon and back, I eventually left NASA in 1971. But my passion for space and exploration never went away. I have spent many years since then talking to people, especially young people like you, about how important it is to keep exploring our universe. I believe that humans should travel to new places, like the planet Mars! Walking on the Moon was an incredible adventure, and it showed the entire world what amazing things we can accomplish when we dream big and work together as a team. I hope my story inspires you to study hard, stay curious about the world around you, and always keep reaching for your own stars.