No Dream Is Too High

• CHAPTER FOUR • SECOND COMES RIGHT AFTER FIRST.

On the television show The Simpsons, Homer asked me how it felt to be the second man on the Moon. I told Homer, “Second comes right after first.”

Who wants to be number two? You never see a team running off the field after a game, shouting, “We’re number two! We’re number two!”

No, everybody wants to be number one.

Truth is, for years, I bristled at my notoriety, being known as “the second man on the Moon.” My father even made strident efforts to get the official U.S. Postal Service stamp to say “First Men on the Moon,” rather than “First Man on the Moon.” The Postal Service opted for “First Man.”

Making matters worse, in the “normal” patterns of NASA and the space program, I should have been the first person to walk on the Moon. Neil was the commander, and I was the pilot. The commander normally stayed with the spacecraft while the junior officer under his command left the spacecraft to perform the EVAs. The commander had an enormous responsibility, not to mention additional training requirements, so in all previous missions, if a crew member was to spacewalk, it was always the junior officer rather than the commander. That was the way NASA had operated in every other launch prior to Apollo 11.

But NASA changed its procedures just prior to our launch. Neil, it was decided, would be the first person to set foot on the lunar surface. Once NASA decided that the mission of Apollo 11 would include an attempted landing, everything changed. We all understood that this would be different; besides being historic, two people would leave the spacecraft, not one.

When the word got out, several of my colleagues said, “This isn’t right, Buzz. You should be the first one to set foot on the surface.” Others, however, felt that the symbolism of the pioneer explorer arriving at his destination demanded that the commander of the mission be the first to set foot on the Moon.

Although I was excited about the possibilities of our mission, I wasn’t interested in trying to manipulate opinions at NASA, or pushing to be number one. I had even expressed to my wife my misgivings about being a crew member on the first mission to the Moon, suggesting that I would rather be involved in a later trip to avoid the publicity and media frenzy and other hoopla that would most assuredly accompany the initial lunar landing. I had experienced a major dose of that sort of public spectacle after I returned to Earth following my successful space walk during Gemini 12. Although I was grateful for the many kind gestures and words expressed to me, the enormous amount of attention I received everywhere I went was overwhelming. I could barely step outside our home without being swarmed by media or fans. Nor could my mother. I’m convinced that the emotional overload following my Gemini success was a major factor in my mother committing suicide the year before I went to the Moon. That’s why, given a choice, I would have preferred a later mission rather than the initial landing.

Moreover, I felt sure that later missions would focus on more experiments, and that possibility intrigued me. But Neil, Mike, and I had been the backup crew for Apollo 8, so when our rotation came up for Apollo 11, it was our turn, whether or not the mission turned out to be the first attempt at landing.

Neil took his commander responsibilities seriously. Too seriously, sometimes, for Mike and me. Mike has a great sense of humor and loves to laugh. Neil was much more serious and “dignified.”

When Neil took that first “small step for man, one giant leap for mankind,” he was still grasping the lunar module (LM) ladder, and his right foot remained on the LM footpad. Because scientists had no idea how deep the lunar dust might be, he tentatively placed his left foot on the surface, trying to determine if it would support his weight. It did. In fact, the LM footpads had only depressed the lunar surface about one or two inches. That was good news. Some scientists were concerned that the LM’s landing pads might sink deeply into the dust, possibly tilting the LM or even toppling the landing craft on its side. But the surface held firmly. Neil’s boot sank into the dust less than a quarter of an inch.

I wasn’t certain what Neil would say when he first set foot on the Moon, but I was quite sure that it would not be some serendipitous statement that just popped into his mind. We were intensely aware that every move we made and every word we spoke on the Moon would be seen and heard by untold millions of people, possibly for generations to come. But I really had no idea what Neil might say the moment he first set foot on the Moon. Even as we approached the Moon, still in the command module, Mike attempted to pry the secret out of Neil, asking him questions such as, “What are you going to say when you get down there?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Neil said, playing down the significance of his initial statement. “If our mission is successful, I’ll think of something.”

I smiled, knowing that whatever Neil decided to say, it would be well thought out and appropriate to the moment.

It was. “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind,” Neil proclaimed, and he was right.

About 20 minutes later, it was my turn. With Neil already on the surface and snapping photos of me, I carefully backed down the ladder and partially closed the hatch, making sure not to lock it on my way out! As I stepped onto the talcumlike lunar dust, the first words that came to mind were: magnificent desolation. It was a “magnificent” accomplishment for man to set foot on another world for the first time. And yet there was the “desolation” of the million-year lunar landscape with no signs of life, no atmosphere, and total blackness beyond the sunlit terrain.

Nearly a billion people all over the world watched and listened as Neil and I ventured onto the powdery lunar surface. Houston was in constant communication with us, so even though we were farther away than any two humans had ever been—except for Mike, who was circling the Moon in Columbia—we felt connected to home.

We spent two and a half hours on the surface—collecting rocks, setting up experiments that NASA could continue to monitor for years, and taking a few photos.

Because the camera was attached to a fitting on Neil’s space suit, he took most of the photographs on the Moon, and he did an excellent job, although the photos were both a blessing and a curse. After setting up one experiment, we weren’t supposed to walk in front of it, but the photos later revealed my footsteps to the right of the apparatus. Because Neil was taking the photo and there was nobody else up there, I was guilty as charged—or, as someone might say, the photo revealed “condemning evidence.”

One photo that Neil took of me later became known as the “Visor Shot,” one of the most famous photographs in history. At first glance, it seems like a simple picture of me standing on the rough lunar surface with the blackness of space behind me. If you look more closely at the reflection in my gold helmet visor, however, you can see the Eagle spacecraft, my shadow on the Moon, some of the experiments we set up, and even Neil taking the picture—all in the visor of my helmet. It is truly an astounding photograph. In one click of the camera shutter, Neil captured man’s first walk on the Moon. Over the years, people have often asked me why this photo was so great. I answer with three words: Location, location, location!

EVENTUALLY, I CAME TO EMBRACE the fact that Neil was the first man on the Moon and I was “second,” and that my position was not insignificant. A relative on my mother’s side of the family, Reeve Darling, and I were talking about being second, and I expressed some consternation about my dubious distinction. Reeve looked at me and said, “Buzz, you can’t change history. You were the second man on the Moon. The media and everyone else focuses on the first; like in the Olympics, we want to know who won the gold medals, but we’re not as interested in the silver and bronze medal winners. Accept it.”

That was a turning point for me. I began to realize that although Neil would always be known as the first man on the Moon, I was there with him, and my contributions helped make Neil’s first step possible. Moreover, I was a participant in and an eyewitness to that first, monumental achievement. Why should I bellyache about being second, when I had so much for which I could be thankful and excited? I am the second person in the history of human beings to set foot on another celestial body. That is a meaningful position in itself.

Oh, I do have a couple of “firsts” in space. I own the title as the first person to ever take a “selfie” in space. During my Gemini 12 space walk, I was taking photos for an experiment involving ultraviolet rays, and while outside the spacecraft, I decided to see what would happen if I took a headshot of myself with Earth over my shoulder and the vastness of space above me in the background. I was confident that I could do it because my future Apollo 11 colleague Mike Collins had taken a photo inside the space capsule during Gemini 10, but nobody had ever tried a selfie outside the spacecraft.

Nearly 50 years later, my manager and “Mission Control Director,” Christina Korp, noticed that someone else had declared a photo as the first selfie in space. Christina has worked with me for a number of years, and she and her husband, Alex, along with their children Brielle and Logan, have become like family to me. Alex and Christina even named their son Logan Alexander Buzz Korp. The boy even has “Buzz” on his passport.

Christina not only manages my business, but she manages my life, and nowadays, she often teases that she has become my substitute mother, protecting my interests and making me behave … or else! We have a wonderful, close relationship, and I depend on her wisdom and expertise.

When Christina saw someone else claiming to have taken the first selfie in space, it was as though someone had insulted her family member! “Oh, I don’t think so,” she said, and instantly sent out the same message on Twitter. “That honor belongs to Buzz Aldrin.” She pointed out the photo I had taken with the Gemini 12 infrared camera. In 2015, a collector released original, authentic NASA prints from the early days of U.S. space exploration, and a print of my selfie sold for more than $9,000 at a London auction that year. I’m not sure whose pocket that money went into, but it wasn’t mine!

AS FAR AS I KNOW, I WAS ALSO THE FIRST person to ever relieve his bladder on the Moon, which I did immediately after jumping off the ladder of the lunar module. Neil took one small step for man and one giant leap for mankind; I took one small step for man and one giant leak for mankind!

In June 2012, I was in Carnarvon, Australia, a tiny town far up the western coastline, out in the middle of nowhere, where a radar station was once used to help track the Apollo missions. When I was speaking to a group of young elementary school children who asked about my first acts on the Moon, I told them a sanitized version of this story.

“Do you know what I did?” I asked the kids.

Sitting on the floor, they leaned forward and looked at me expectantly, waiting quietly for my next words.

“I peed my pants!”

The kids went crazy, elbowing each other and hooting with laughter. To think that an astronaut would do something like that! But I did.

While testing out the urine containment feature of my space suit may sound insignificant, it was actually quite a tribute to the great progress made in space technology. In earlier years, during the Mercury program, for example, when an astronaut had to “go to the bathroom,” he sometimes found himself lying in a pool of his own urine.

Of course, this is one of the questions that every elementary school–aged boy wants to know: “How did you guys go to the bathroom while you were in space for all those days?”

By the time Jim Lovell and I flew on Gemini 12, NASA had become skilled in the art of waste disposal. We each used a “blue bag,” with a sticky substance on it that stuck to our posteriors to collect excrement. We excreted our urine into catheters that looked something like condoms. If possible, we disposed of waste products during our extravehicular activities, which is what I did during my space walk on Gemini 12. Before rejoining Jim inside, I opened the hatch and grabbed three bags of waste products and sort of pitched them over my shoulder, straight up.

That was a mistake!

Being as familiar with orbital mechanics as I am, I should have realized what I had just done—basically launching those three bags on a free return trajectory that would eventually come straight back at us! An orbit or so later, Jim and I looked out our window, and sure enough, there they were—three bags full—and heading straight for us!

Talk about unidentified objects in space! I don’t think NASA ever acknowledged that one.

WHETHER NUMBER ONE, OR NUMBER TWO, or a number far down the pecking order, regardless of your position, never turn in less than your best work. Refuse to fail from lack of effort, whether physical conditioning or mental work—and don’t fool yourself, thinking is hard work!

All work is noble, if it is legal and ethical, so do your best, whether you are first, second, or last. Never lose an opportunity, a job, an election, a competition, or anything else because you were too lazy to give it your best effort. Certainly, you need rest and recreation, but keep those in balance with hard work. Remember, while you are partying, someone else is working hard to succeed. It’s okay to be second, as long as you do the absolute best you can do.

Recently, I received a special award figurine from the producers of The Simpsons. For my cameo “appearance” on the “second comes right after first” episode (“Deep Space Homer”), I was voted as one of the top 25 guest stars in the entire history of the show. So I guess being second is not so bad!