Moonshot: The Inside Story of Mankind's Greatest Adventure (8 page)

Such intricate manoeuvres had to be carefully worked out by specialists, including astronauts. While Collins assessed EVA equipment and Armstrong worked on simulators, the third member of the crew, Buzz Aldrin, focused on mission planning. Buzz had once been a member of Houston's rendezvous and reentry panel, but when he found that the panel was not performing the work he expected of it, he drew attention to himself by switching to the trajectories and orbits panel.
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Within the Astronaut Office such actions occasionally won Aldrin a bad press, his true nature and motivation sometimes being misunderstood. Being misunderstood was something that had haunted Buzz since childhood.

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Born in Montclair, New Jersey, on 30 January 1930, Edwin Aldrin Jr was the third child and only son of a distant and demanding father. After studying under Dr Robert Goddard, a leading pioneer in rocket science, Aldrin senior (who used the name Gene) served as a pilot during the First World War and later came to know Orville Wright. Gene Aldrin completed a doctor of science degree in electrical engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), then cut a dash as an aide to General Billy Mitchell, who was stationed in the Philippines. In 1928 Gene left the military to become a stockbroker; through luck or judgement, he sold his stock just three months short of the Wall Street crash. Taking a job with Standard Oil, he travelled the world in a style that for an oil executive managed to include a good deal of adventure. He was commended by Mussolini, flew himself over the Alps, and crossed the Atlantic aboard the
Hindenburg
zeppelin. Gene subsequently became an aviation consultant, making use of his connections with Charles Lindbergh, Howard Hughes and Jimmy Doolittle.
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When Edwin junior was born, his two older sisters, Madeline and Fay Ann, came to call him 'brother'. Fay Ann, who was just learning to speak, pronounced this as 'buzzer', which was later condensed to Buzz. He saw little of his adventurer father, and was largely brought up by his mother, his sisters, Anna the cook and Alice the housekeeper. There was a sensitive, almost vulnerable side to Buzz, more pronounced than any comparable quality in either Armstrong or Collins. His childhood was marked by a quest for his father's approval, that even in adulthood proved to be somewhat elusive. During the Second World War, Gene Aldrin was away from home even more than he had been in previous years, serving in the South Pacific and in Europe. Buzz later wrote that whenever he came home 'the visits were always short and, it seemed to me, rather remote'. While, as children, Neil and Michael pursued hobbies that fulfilled personal interests, Buzz sometimes took part in things that were likely to win him attention. These included picking fights in pursuit of a 'much-wanted shiner', in order to impress the crowd he wanted to hang around with.

As much a loner as Neil and Michael, Buzz enjoyed solo activities such as pole-vaulting, swimming and cycling, but also played at quarterback for the school football team. His average grades at school brought disapproval at home, and as he grew older he came to realise that a better performance was required. 'My father never gave direct instructions nor stated goals,' Buzz later wrote, 'but what was expected was somehow made clear.' Making a decision to improve his schoolwork he threw himself into this ambition, so much so that by the time he graduated from West Point, in 1951, he came third out of a class of 475. His father wanted to know who came first and second. 'Third place doesn't hold quite the appeal to him that first place does,' Buzz remembered.

In deciding to join the air force, Buzz pursued his own ambitions rather than following his family's wishes. Instead of West Point, his father had wanted him to attend the navy academy at Annapolis, Maryland. The two had fought over the subject, Aldrin senior eventually giving way. Subsequently Gene wanted his son to fly multi-engine aircraft, while Buzz hankered after fighters. Again Buzz won the day, but at some cost since his successes were tinged with conflict and defiance.

Tenacious, competitive and with a point to prove, Buzz flew 66 combat missions in Korea, shooting down two MiGs. After returning to the States, in 1954 he married Joan Archer, the daughter of family friends. Bright, articulate and with a master's degree from Columbia University, 'she had a way of smiling at me I couldn't figure out', Buzz wrote. 'It either meant, "I've got your number, buster," or "Try and catch me." Both, I think now.'
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Joan came to think of him as a 'curious mixture of magnificent confidence bordering on conceit and humility'.
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Indeed a fellow air force officer quietly took Buzz aside after a few beers one night and told him he was too competitive and too insensitive to others, but that he had great potential and he wouldn't want to acquire a reputation as an egotist. 'He must have spoken the truth,' Buzz later recalled, 'because the truth can sometimes hurt and I had tears streaming down my cheeks. I thanked him.'
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In 1956, Buzz was transferred to Bitburg, Germany. In Bitburg, Aldrin began to think about his future and considered applying to the air force's experimental test pilot school at Edwards. Instead he decided to earn a postgraduate degree, and he asked the air force to send him to MIT where his father had studied some 40 years earlier. Beginning his studies just a few months after NASA selected the Mercury Seven, Buzz chose for his doctoral thesis the subject of manned orbital rendezvous techniques. Rendezvous, the science of two spacecraft finding and approaching each other, would be an essential component in any mission to the Moon. It was not, however, a traditional subject of study for an air force pilot. It was becoming clear that Aldrin's ambitions lay in other directions.

After starting his doctorate, Buzz wrote to NASA during their search for a second group of astronauts, suggesting they drop the requirement for test-flight experience. NASA declined. In early January 1963, after completing his studies Aldrin was briefly posted to the air force's space systems division in Los Angeles, and from there he was sent to the Manned Spacecraft Center to assist with government experiments that were being prepared for the Gemini flights. He, Joan and their three children, Michael, Jan and Andy, together made the journey to Houston. Then in June, when NASA asked for applications for a third group of astronauts, Aldrin found that the requirement for test pilot experience was no longer mandatory and he quickly applied.

After enduring the series of rigorous selection tests, alongside Collins, Aldrin was in his office one day in September when Deke Slayton called and invited him to become an astronaut. 'Shoot, Deke,' Buzz replied, 'I'd be delighted to accept.' In common with almost everyone who received
the call
from Deke, Buzz accepted in as relaxed a style as he could muster, later saying, 'I was determined to look casual and self-assured and from somewhere deep in my conditioning, that attitude materialised.' In contrast to Armstrong, who genuinely was casual and self-assured, Buzz later described himself as being 'out of my head with excitement'. Whereas Armstrong had been too busy to worry about whether he would be selected,
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Buzz wrote that he had become 'so oriented to the goal of becoming an astronaut that I felt being refused would bring about destruction, deep disappointment from which I might never recover'. For Aldrin, much was at stake. Many years later he once introduced his father as 'the man who propelled me into the astronaut business', which, said Buzz privately, 'was a bit of an under-statement. An under-statement that paled beside the expectations Edwin Eugene Aldrin had for his lastborn child and only son.'
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Joining NASA was a moment of triumph Buzz had long been working towards. But in many respects membership of such an elite group of high-achievers meant that life was to become more complicated.

Aldrin's doctoral work – and vocal championing of his own ideas – eventually earned him the nickname Dr Rendezvous. Armstrong later said it was true that Buzz knew more about rendezvous matters than anybody else in the Astronaut Office, adding that 'he didn't hide that fact but he didn't take advantage of it either'.
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Another fact Buzz found it hard to hide was his confusion over how crews were selected for flights. Decisions were made behind closed doors, largely though not exclusively by Slayton. Thirty astronauts were available for the ten manned missions of the Gemini programme, and each flight required two crewmen. In theory there were 20 places to fill, but some astronauts were to be selected for a second trip. Deke paired potential candidates according to their skills and compatibility, giving command positions to the Mercury veterans and handing out the remaining seats to the more promising newcomers.

Inevitably some of the 14 recruits were chosen to fly ahead of their envious peers. Buzz was among those who had to wait. For six years he had been studying hard for an opportunity that now lay just outside his reach. As frustrating as it was, he knew he could not adopt the direct approach he had used in confrontations with his schoolmates, or later, when fending off his father. His father, having kept him at arm's length, awakened in Buzz a need to go the extra mile. All along, Buzz had found that determination and achievement could overcome the difficulties in his life. But now things were different and he was unsure how to take the softly, softly approach. When he ran out of patience, Buzz decided to talk to Deke directly. After reminding Slayton just how experienced he was in the field of rendezvous techniques, Buzz went on to say, 'I had no idea at all how the selections were made, but that I felt it was honest to at least state that I had some pretty good qualifications'. The conversation dried up in an awkward silence until eventually Deke said he would take the matter under consideration. Subsequently, Slayton and the NASA hierarchy deemed that Buzz had been brash.
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Aldrin decided to share the problem with colleagues. He frequently discussed the 'astronaut business' with his close friend and fellow air force pilot Charlie Bassett, who was due to fly aboard Gemini 9. As crew after crew was announced, it appeared that the only thing that raised a man's chances of being selected was previous experience as the member of a backup crew. Anyone on a backup crew could reasonably expect to fly three flights later. Finally, Buzz was told that he was to be part of the Gemini 10 backup crew, which meant he might fly aboard Gemini 13 – a poor place to be in a programme with 12 flights, two of which were unmanned. Bassett's forthcoming mission was of great interest to Buzz since it was to include a rendezvous, and the two frequently discussed Charlie's preparations.

Early on the morning of 28 February 1966, Charlie and his fellow crewman Elliot See flew from Houston to St Louis to inspect their spacecraft. Amid bad weather, See, who was piloting their two-seat T-38 jet, was struggling to land and after coming in too low he attempted to go round again, but it was too late. The jet tore into the very building where the spacecraft was being prepared and both men were killed. In the aftermath, their backups, Tom Stafford and Gene Cernan, became the prime crew, Cernan subsequently carrying out the dangerous EVA Charlie had been training for. In the weeks after the accident, those preparing for successive missions moved one flight forward. Through the loss of his close friend, Buzz moved from Gemini 10 to backing up Gemini 9, which put him in line to fly on the last flight, Gemini 12 – in theory. When he explained the changes to Charlie Bassett's widow, Jeannie, she told him, 'Charlie felt you should have been in it all along. I know he'd be pleased.'
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Aldrin later described this as one of the most uncomfortable moments in his life. But the Gemini 12 line-up was not yet confirmed. The final decision on whether Buzz would fly was to be addressed by Slayton and the NASA hierarchy.

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At her home in Houston, Joan Aldrin and her children Michael, 13, Janice, who was nearly 12, and Andrew, 11, had watched the launch of Apollo 11 on television. Sitting alongside Jeannie Bassett, Joan had fallen silent during the final seconds of the countdown; while watching the rocket race away from the Earth she didn't say a word for the first seven minutes of the flight.
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The live TV coverage had struggled to keep up with the booster's furious pace and soon all that could be seen was a billowing column of smoke, as if the rocket had finally been consumed by the fire trailing behind it. The men were not due to return for another eight days.

Chapter 4
FINDING A WAY HOME

During trans-lunar injection the crew fired the third-stage engine for less than six minutes, but it was enough to increase their speed to more than 24,000mph. 'We started the burn at 100 miles altitude,' Collins later wrote, 'and had reached only 180 at cut-off, but we are climbing like a dingbat ... At the instant of shutdown, Buzz recorded our velocity as 35,579 feet per second, more than enough to escape from the Earth's gravitational field.'
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Following a course that would put them some 40 degrees ahead of the Moon as it travelled on its path around the Earth, Neil, Michael and Buzz were now heading directly towards deep space.
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A quarter of an hour later, Mission Control lost contact with them. While this was a routine irritation during any space-flight, for the families it was worrying. In Houston, Janet Armstrong, Pat Collins and Joan Aldrin were able to hear everything for themselves. A 'squawk box' loudspeaker, installed in their homes, broadcast the repeated attempts to restore communications.