by Andrew Smith
We begin by talking about the pair of novels he’s cowritten, which I read in Vegas and Barstow. The first, Encounter with Tiber, was published in 1996 and is an unwieldy space mystery about a message left by an alien civilization on the Moon. The second, a sci-fi whodunit called The Return, is tighter and lighter of touch. In both, the villains are visionless bureaucrats in the post–Apollo NASA mould, and politicians who won’t pony up the dough for essential stuff like Mars Cyclers (more of this in a moment). It plays against the backdrop of a new Space Race with China, which three years later is beginning to look remarkably prescient, because a Chinese space programme is on the launchpad. I ask him how he’d foreseen this and he begins by talking about his writerly ambitions, which surfaced in 1975 or 1976, but took twenty years to focus.
“I kind of challenged myself, ‘What can I do with what I’ve experienced?’ ” he says. “The idea was to talk about what people didn’t know about space travel, or what they erroneously thought about it …”
Eventually, he gets to China and its purported lunar ambitions, which have been exciting the European press for several months without gaining much attention here. Aldrin tells me that he first heard mutterings on “the underground.”
“What,” I splutter, “the space underground?” I can’t imagine what such a thing would be for.
Yeah, he tells me. There are rumours that the Chinese, for whom the Moon has special cultural significance, are also looking at Mars – just as we were in 1969, when von Braun tried to use the success of Apollo as a springboard for his big play, which he presented to Congress that autumn: nuclear rockets assembled in Moon bases, to reach the red planet in the early 1980s. Inevitably, the politicians balked. With Apollo struggling for cash and Vietnam in full swing, they could never support an extension of the programme into Deep Space, and for the next decade and a half, the adventure seemed over, done, an arcane relic of a more affluent and optimistic time. Yet a change came with the Challenger shuttle disaster in 1986, after which a shadowy cadre, formed out of a few enthusiasts, organizations and maverick billionaires, began to agitate for a return to the stars, questioning for the first time NASA’s custodianship of “The Dream.” Now Aldrin had something to believe in and apply his mind to and ideas tumbled from his head, including a Moon Cycler, which would travel perpetually between the Earth and the Moon, moving people and materials between the two bodies. When others convinced him that this idea would be better applied to Mars, lots of experts doubted whether it could be done, whether the necessary orbits could be traced – whether they exist in physics – but Aldrin found them. By his elegant conception, the cycler would sweep around the Sun and swing past Earth and Mars forever, using only the force of the heavens, gravity, for fuel. It was around this time that he kicked the drugs and booze. To him, the books are about giving context to some of his ideas. They’re trying to be realist rather than futurist. Buzz rehearses the arguments about whether to go back to the Moon or Mars first, managing to find a typically maverick case for going to the moons of Mars. Then he stops and says:
“So that’s two very different philosophies, neither of which are going to be really implemented.”
What? But he devotes his life to this, I say, and he explains some of the background politics of the situation, describing a web of vested interests, woven around established contractors, government agencies, the armed forces and NASA. I recognize all of this from The Return and it sounds intractable. Isn’t there something quixotic about spending time on all these ideas when he knows they stand no chance of becoming real?
“Well, it looks as though the cards are playing out and someone will swoop in there and snatch victory from … whatever. And we might lose out, but …”
Aldrin shrugs and trails off, while I try to work out what the devil he’s saying.
Keen to move on, I note that the decision to try his hand at writing is interesting, because – and even before I’ve finished the sentence, he’s muttering “I don’t” – because writing sounds like such hard work for him – “I don’t” – as he describes it in Return to Earth and …
Sorry, Buzz, what did you say?
“It is. Hard work. And I don’t write. I can take a piece of paper and outline a few things, but I much prefer drawing a graph, where things move from left to right in time periods and I see what’s moving, or maybe I’ll look at orbits and try and work out progressions of orbits. Not just one mission, but what are the progressions, what are the buildups.”
Once again, I’m not quite sure what is being said.
“Right now, the basic scheme of things in my mind is different than NASA’s. NASA has been sitting there kind of doing nothing and now they’ve got a little bit of new leadership and it looks to me as though they’re going to say, ‘We, NASA, are tired of being in low Earth orbit – we’re going to go beyond!’ ”
He sounds so much like Buzz Lightyear when he says this that I have to resist an urge to applaud.
“But I think that’s just eyewash. I don’t think they’re going to be able to do that the way it should happen, until we get the people behind the programme. We do that by passenger travel, and we build up a transportation system that takes the people up and back efficiently, cost-effectively and reliably – and they have a place to go. So we have to have a hotel …”
“A hotel in space? Is that all?” I tease, and Aldrin shrugs and shapes a rueful smile and admits that he hasn’t really figured out a niche for himself yet. But something strange seems to happen, as though a switch has been flipped, and the humble amiability disappears. Out of nowhere he says:
“I achieved something in space. To then transfer that into making cookies isn’t that much of a thrill. Or selling beer or something.”
Charlie Duke and Alan Shepard both did well with beer distribution businesses in the turbulent time after NASA. Is this a dig at them? I remind him of the disdain he’s heaped upon some of his ex-colleagues’ business activities over the years, suggesting that they were compromised through their alliances with powerful individuals and corporations.
“Well, I don’t know, some of ’em clearly have some very good management skills and have been able to turn that into very good careers. And they’re now enjoying life, in their definition of enjoying life. I have never felt that I have to have toys and airplanes and such to fly around. There’s great enjoyment in doing that – when you’re doing it – but it tends to take your attention away from … something more nebulous. It’s hard to do both.”
I mention Charlie Duke and the unwitting role he played in bringing me here, but before I can finish the thought Buzz is back on a train of his own.
“Mm-hmm. Yeah, I’m having dinner with him Friday night. He’s a very … uhm …”
He takes a while to choose his word. I’m expecting “charming,” or “nice,” because that’s what most people say about Charlie.
“He’s a very neutral guy, who is enthusiastic, but he doesn’t get labelled one way or the other. And I think, as such, he’s picked up a need, whenever we’ve had an astronaut reunion, he’s made an effort to identify an opportunity for the ancient order of astronauts to get together. And that strikes a very, ah, harmonious chord with me, ’cos I’ve tried to do that, to get the people organized into more of an esprit de corps way, and then see what happens outta that …”
I think that what he’s just said is that he wishes Charlie would champion space more, but he’s fond of him all the same.
“But that [my] lack of being a dynamic salesman and leader has resulted … well, there’s been another impediment, too. The peckin’ order, haha, has seniority …”
A pecking order? Among the astronauts? All these years later?
“Very much so. Oh, yes, yes. It’s very layered and defined.”
Where do you think you come in it?
“Well, there’s a first group of astronauts and a second group, then the third group. And where you flew. And whether you were a commander.”
&n
bsp; And you were in the third group, flew last, didn’t command … he nods wordlessly.
“And then there are a lot of little detailed reasons why John Glenn did not assume the role that was given Yuri Gagarin or Alexei Leonov by the Soviets. And certainly, Neil hasn’t assumed that role.”
He means the role of a figurehead and advocate for space. I ask how he and Armstrong get on these days? Has the relationship changed?
“It’s fine. But what I want to see happen does not get any support. From hardly anybody.”
I’m sure that I read somewhere about Al Bean regretting the lack of esprit de corps, I say. I’m expecting something like contempt in return, because Bean the aesthete really has abandoned the space effort. But no.
“Al has been the one guy who has said, ‘What a wonderful book that was that you wrote,’ ” he says, and a kind of tenderness enters his voice. “The only one that has said that.”
Buzz sounds a little offended by my assumption that Bean was talking about Return to Earth.
“No, Encounter with Tiber,” he bristles. “See … I think there’s, there’s still a reluctance on the part of the early astronauts to think that carrying passengers is a good idea …”
And we’re off into the cosmic dust again.
I was born the year Apollo began, in 1961, Aldrin in 1930: when he’d finished with the Moon, he was about the age that I am now, so I know that even under normal circumstances most of the clichés surrounding midlife turn out to have truth. Still, the rest of us can kid ourselves that the best is yet to come and occasionally we might even believe it. Occasionally it might be true. Yet Aldrin was afforded no such comfort, and he admits that he was underprepared for almost everything that followed. Especially the “What next?”
“Then there was such an overwhelming involvement in public appearances, that were just not satisfying or anticipated with relish … and there was a competitiveness among the three of us that was kind of quiet – there was always, in my mind, the audience who was looking and saying, ‘I like this guy’ – ‘No, he’s better.’ And we wanted to avoid that stuff, you know? To keep doing that continuously … it was competitive enough to begin with!”
But weren’t you always very competitive anyway, I blurt? Mike Collins said that he felt uncomfortable in your presence back then. That he had the feeling that you would probe him for weaknesses … There is a very long pause.
“Made Mike uncomfortable?”
Well, yeah. That’s what he said. Another pause ensues, during which I have an almost physical sense of him processing this information, trying to integrate it into an autobiographical story that doesn’t hurt too much. When he speaks, he does sound hurt.
“The thing is, I was trying to get support for ideas. And vindication and pointing out things that maybe people hadn’t thought about. And maybe that made them uncomfortable. Well, I guess …”
I’d assumed Aldrin to have read Collins’s book, but it seems that he hasn’t. I try to change the subject, but he interjects, his voice speedier and more passionate.
“See, if you’re concentrating on some effort like this and somebody brings up something extraneous and says [adopts high-pitched voice], ‘Well, what do you think of this?’ Well, that’ll make people uncomfortable. I don’t think I was ever doing that. What I was bringing up was something that had to do with things I knew a lot about, and I wanted other people to contribute. And that had to do with rendezvous or something, instead of ‘What’s the latest motorboat?’ or ‘How’s the golf score coming?’ That’s not of interest to me.”
For the record, Alan Shepard rubbed a lot of people up the wrong way, too, but never had the sensitivity to care about it. I tell Aldrin that I think what he did after his flight, in acknowledging frailties which were considered improper in that environment, was very brave. I’ve tried to imagine myself summoning that kind of courage, but haven’t so far been able to. He seems to relax.
“No, no. It was not expected of you to, ah, air frailties. But you see, I didn’t even know the problem then, which was alcoholism. And that’s something that’s hard to talk about, because of the mechanisms of recovery. You don’t want to go around talking about it and bragging that you’ve recovered from something, because you really haven’t. You have a reprieve. We call it a daily reprieve. But I recognize it, when I look at that area of challenge, and when I see people who have done so much, and who are continuing to do so much for other people. All I’ve done is succeed. I’ve not been all that tremendously helpful, except in one realm – and that’s as an example. But I can’t really wave the flag about that example either, because that’s not great humility, and the one thing the process teaches you is humility.”
As already noted, Return to Earth ended with the depression under control and the family back together, trying for a fresh start in California. There was an impression of optimism, but it all fell apart again. I wonder aloud what happened.
“Well, we wanted to put that optimistic note on it, as we did on recovery – which was uncertain. And both fell apart. The recovery didn’t work, ’cos I didn’t know what the problem was. Or it wasn’t clearly identified. And neither did the optimism of bringing the family back together again. And the two fed each other, really.”
He nods gently.
“Yeah. And so in trying to resolve that, I got married again to somebody and that didn’t work at all. So then I spent a long time putting things together and trying to figure out what I ought to be doin’. Then it wasn’t until the late Eighties that I began to get to a sufficiently healthy status.”
It’s hard not to smile at the language. Sufficiently healthy status. Was there a turning point in that period? It seems a long time to struggle alone. He talks more about his grand plans for space and the recovery that coincided with them, though he acknowledges no connection, and then about an invitation he received last year to sit on the U.S. Commission on the Aerospace Industry.
“Humbling in a way, because all the other eleven guys are experts in their field and its mostly management, corporate structure, legal this, defence that, or financing … and I’m the space guy, you know? The guy that’s on this end of the country – everybody else is over there.”
He waves vaguely in the direction of the East Coast. I’m not quite sure where this is going, but am by now able to recognize this last statement as vintage Aldrin; at once modest and massively self-aggrandizing, as though every breath the world offers him must be repaid with an achievement. While I’m contemplating this, he continues with the story.
“I felt challenged and the problem of not writing things down is really getting to be a difficulty. So I’ve harnessed some support people –”
“Wait, wait,” I interrupt. “You don’t write things down at all?”
“No.”
Why not?
“I don’t know. It has progressively grown …”
So you don’t do it at all?
“Well, I fine-tune things. And I look at what’s been done by people who’ve done it very, very well.”
I hadn’t grasped the implications of what he’d said earlier. He doesn’t physically write anything at all. Is it a kind of phobia?
“Yeah, it is. It really is.”
I’ve never heard of that one.
“Well, I don’t know that other people suffer from it.”
Where does he think it comes from? I ask, wondering whether he might be dyslexic. Has he tried to get help for this condition?
“Well, I’ve been able to successfully … erm … exist, without doing that,” he says. “And it just becomes a characteristic, maybe.”
Then he goes off on what seems like another tangent, but actually might not be.
“I didn’t want to get into, um, skiing, unless I could do it real well. Then after a while I realized, ‘Jeez, you know, you’re missing something if you don’t get into these things.’ So, um, I’m now a pretty good skier. But it’s not as natural as if I’d been doing it from the twenties
and thirties on. I’ve given golf a chance, but it’s so time-consuming. And messing around with a lot of people, and being among the bottom of talent, is not consistent with having been on the Moon.”
His eyes crinkle into a smile, then a laugh – and I laugh, too, recognizing something of what he describes in myself. He likes scuba diving, he tells me, because he is forced to realize that “it’s not a contest under there, it’s very individualistic and you need to develop your individual ways of dealing with things.” In the deep he can let go. No one’s watching or judging.
Buzz was the youngest of three siblings, the only boy. I ask whether his dad is still around, knowing it to be unlikely. He goes very quiet.
“No, no, no. He died in 1978. No, ’74.”
Aldrin Junior, referring to the old man’s interference in his career, once speculated as to whether “it was a bit difficult for him to accept that my own goals had begun to exceed those he set for me.” I wonder how he felt when his dad died? This is exactly his response:
“Well, it was kind of sad, to, to, uh … Because he … he, he, he began to, uhm, have a, have an existence that relied on my achievements. And I felt, ‘Fine, that’s wonderful, but he’s not right in there, he doesn’t understand what I’m doin’.’ A-and, t-t-to have an, have an individual existence didn’t rely on that. Uhm. He still had connections with people from years ago, and a respect, to a degree, that was very helpful. But the cutting-edge things that I was trying to be associated with, it was just not something that I could sit down with him and talk about. Uhm. And – ah.”