Talk:Buzz Aldrin

This article contains information about one or more living persons. Articles about living people must be handled carefully, because they are more open to legal threats. Reference any contentious allegations solidly; unreferenced allegations should be removed. If legal threats are raised on this page, please direct the potential litigant to RationalWiki:Legal FAQ; do not interact with them.

So what? Wẽãšẽĩõĩď^{Methinks it is a Weasel} 06:32, 29 June 2011 (UTC)

Didn't he punch a moon hoaxer in the face? I think that alone merits inclusion. Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 06:36, 29 June 2011 (UTC)

Why not, then, do some research and include that into the article (assuming it happened)? In fact, I'll get to work on it right now. Let's see if we can make this more than the stubby stub it is. The Punk Symphony of Noise ^{Your mental puke relief} 06:39, 29 June 2011 (UTC)

Yes, in fact. It DID happen! The Punk Symphony of Noise ^{Your mental puke relief} 06:40, 29 June 2011 (UTC)

Mission template

Can we remove this now, or would we like to see more "on-mission" content? Just wondering, as I like to see these templates removed when they are no longer needed. The Punk Symphony of Noise ^{Your mental puke relief} 00:18, 30 June 2011 (UTC)

I agree. It seems some authors have certainly missionified (?) this article. Aboriginal Noise ^{Oh, you want to hit people with garbage cans?} 00:27, 30 June 2011 (UTC)

Besides, when a 72 year old punches someone in the face, it deserves some kind of attention :) Aboriginal Noise ^{Oh, you want to hit people with garbage cans?} 01:30, 30 June 2011 (UTC)

Is gone. MtD^{Pinko Scum} 01:47, 30 June 2011 (UTC)

For all the things he did

He's a climate denialist? What kind of cognitive dissonance do you need to maintain those thoughts? Osaka Sun (talk) 21:47, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

All of the early astronauts were either military or former military (it kind of goes with the whole "test pilot" thing). A WASP of his generation and a former military on top - it would be surprising if he didn't lean right. Also, I don't see how "the things he did" contradict his current views. :)--ZooGuard (talk) 10:23, 18 January 2012 (UTC)

I mean in his contributions to space exploration. And you're forgetting about John Glenn. Osaka Sun (talk) 19:52, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

Still not as bad as Ed Mitchell banging on about aliens. Rennie McGreet (talk) 19:56, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

(EC) John Glenn was a Democrat, and a friend to science. Also, Buzz Aldrin is probably unique in those standpoints: the majority of astronauts speak about loving their planet, not their state or country. Interesting quotes, including one from Aldrin, about perspective of the world gained by astronauts. Aldrin does a fair amount of artwork on the beauty of Earth, probably not much in regards to the state of the planet's atmosphere. Perhaps he shares a similar view to George Carlin, who said (and I'm kinda paraphrasing) "Don't worry about saving the planet. The planet will be fine. We are the ones who are fucked." -- Seth Peck (talk) 20:02, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

Just to revisit this - there's a couple of them. Harrison Schmitt, Walter Cunningham and Philip K. Chapman. Not sure if it's notable enough to mention in the article though. Osaka Sun (talk) 01:41, 11 January 2014 (UTC)

Wong guy for the Apollo 11 "UFO"

According to the Apollo Flight Journal site, it was Armstrong who radioed Mission Control to ask about the S-IVB, not Aldrin. See here, the 060:45:38 timestamp and below.--ZooGuard (talk) 12:58, 15 February 2014 (UTC)

So I'm moving the section here until I find it a better home:

==An IFO, not a UFO==

After panel jettison, the Command/Service Module turns around to dock and extract the Lunar Module from the SIVB stage.

Two days after TLI (Trans-Lunar Injection, or the rocket burn that made the spacecraft depart Earth orbit and head for the Moon) on Apollo 11, the crew noticed an object that appeared to be following them. Buzz radioed Mission Control to ask where the SIVB (final stage of the Saturn rocket stack) was in relation to them. The answer he got was "about 6,000 nautical miles from you." So that obviously wasn't it.

The sub-group of humanity that loves to imagine alien invasions got hold of this story, and to this day many of them continue to believe that Apollo 11 was tracked by a UFO<ref>See, for example, this Youtube video which mendaciously claims that the object was never identified.</ref>. However, it was an IFO. After the mission, the incident was evaluated and the object was determined to be one of the four panels making up a shroud that covered the Lunar Module during launch. After leaving Earth orbit, the shroud was jettisoned, and nobody much cared where the panels ended up. Since there is no air friction in space, they carried the forward momentum of the SIVB stage, moving towards the Moon at a slightly lower speed than the Apollo spacecraft itself, plus the "sideways" movement imparted to them by the jettison. The SIVB stage itself had received a command to change course after the separation of the Apollo craft, missing the Moon to enter an orbit around the Sun (after Apollo 12, the SIVB stages were directed to impact the Moon to provide data for the seismographs left by the previous missions. Yep, NASA produced artificial moonquakes.)