Free Mission to Mars by Buzz Aldrin Page A

yet magnificent landscape. Looking at Earth from that perspective, everything I knew andloved lay suspended overhead, residing on a small, fragile, bright blue sphere engulfed by the blackness of space.
    What I didn’t anticipate until my return to Earth is that America’s success in achieving the first landing of humans on the moon was viewed as a success for
all
humankind. Now that’s a buddy system! People from every part of the world took pride in collectively declaring, “We did it.” Second, in undertaking the Apollo 11 mission, there was a rediscovery of our own precious planet Earth. It’s a very special cradle of life that we all reside on.
    My stay on the moon is filled with countless other recollections as well.
    Once I set foot on the moon, I checked my balance and peed in my space suit’s urine collector. I took note that each time I put my foot down there was a spray of dust. And when that dust hit the ground it changed in albedo—in reflectivity and color.
    In looking back at that moment in time, putting aside all the pre-mission training, there wasn’t a big picture in my mind of the sequence of what we were doing. We did take some pictures walking around the lunar module. We looked for any damage on the
Eagle
and at what the ground looked like underneath our lander. By the way, when I got through walking around the
Eagle
, snapping photos, I gave the camera to Neil. He took most of the pictures. I’m not trying to ease out of any public relations perspective, but we were never briefed on how important the PR pictures would be.
    Our stay time on the moon was brief. But the emotion of being first has been long lasting. Still, as we both walked on the moon, I did have the sense of not being as much a member of a team as a follower. If Neil started to do the wrong thing, I wouldn’t have known, because I wasn’t following a particular order of what we were doing. In some ways, we were thrown out onto the surface and expected to perform a checklist by memory. Set up the flag. Open rock boxes. Put an experiment in place.

    Buzz Aldrin’s photo of his own boot print on the moon
    ( Illustration Credit 4.1 )
    So it was very extemporaneous. There was a sense of, “Well, we’re here. Let’s go do what we’re supposed to do. But what is next?” The later Apollo moonwalkers had a little more time to get used to the lunar environment.
    One of the strongest sensations I recall is the smell of the moon.

    Buzz Aldrin inside the
Eagle,
the lunar lander
    ( Illustration Credit 4.2 )
    Neil and I reentered the
Eagle
lunar lander and repressurized our little home away from home. Lunar dust soiled our suits and equipment, and it had a definite odor, like burnt charcoal or the ashes that are in a fireplace, especially if you sprinkle a little water on them.
    Before we left Earth, some alarmists considered the lunar dust as very dangerous, in fact pyrophoric—capable of igniting spontaneously in air. The theory was that the lunar dusthad been so void of contact with oxygen, as soon as we repressurized our lunar module cabin it might heat up, smolder, and perhaps burst into flames. At least that was the worry of a few. A late July fireworks display on the moon was not something anyone wanted!
    All the official samples collected from the moon’s surface were placed in vacuum-packed containers. Neil did grab a contingency specimen. He stuffed it into his thigh space suit pocket, just in case there was a problem that forced us to scurry off the moon in a hurry.
    So, following our moonwalks, first I then Neil climbed back on board the lander. That grab specimen was placed on the cylindrical flat top of the ascent engine cover. As the cabin began to fill with air, we both anxiously waited to see if the lunar sample would begin to smoke and smolder. If it did, we’d stop pressurization, open the hatch, and toss it out. But nothing happened. We got back to the business of readying for departure from the moon.
    Yes, Apollo