Buzz Aldrin
Born January 20, 1930, Glen Ridge, NJ · Lawrence N. Greenleaf Lodge No. 169, Denver (raised); also Oak Park No. 864, Montclair No. 144, Clear Lake No. 1417
Apollo 11 lunar module pilot and the first Freemason to walk on the Moon, carrying a Scottish Rite flag and a Grand Lodge of Texas commission.
Contribution to History
Buzz Aldrin graduated third in his West Point class of 1951 and flew 66 combat missions in F-86 Sabre jets over Korea. At MIT he wrote a doctoral thesis on how two spacecraft find and meet each other in orbit, and fellow astronauts nicknamed him “Dr. Rendezvous.”
On Gemini 12 in November 1966, he made three spacewalks totaling about five and a half hours, proving a person could do useful work outside a spacecraft. On July 20, 1969, he followed Neil Armstrong down the ladder of the lunar module Eagle onto the Moon.
Why It Matters Today
Every time a crew capsule docks with the International Space Station, it is solving the problem Aldrin studied in graduate school. Astronauts still train for spacewalks underwater. He also spoke openly about depression and alcohol after Apollo, long before that kind of honesty was common.
Magnificent desolation.
Buzz Aldrin, on the lunar surface, July 20, 1969
The Masonic Thread
Aldrin was initiated and passed in Oak Park Lodge No. 864 in Montgomery, Alabama, in 1955, and raised in Lawrence N. Greenleaf Lodge No. 169 in Denver in February 1956. He later belonged to Montclair Lodge No. 144 in New Jersey and Clear Lake Lodge No. 1417 in Seabrook, Texas.
He carried a Special Deputation from Texas Grand Master J. Guy Smith, appointing him to claim Masonic territorial jurisdiction there for the Grand Lodge of Texas, and a silk Scottish Rite flag that he later presented at the House of the Temple in Washington, where it remains. The Grand Lodge of Texas later chartered Tranquility Lodge No. 2000, symbolically seated on the Moon. No lodge meeting has ever been held there. His lifelong habit of study is one any of us can practice: when the work ahead is hard, go learn it.
Sources
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buzz_Aldrin
- https://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a11/a11.step.html
- https://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/12652
- https://www.nasa.gov/mission/gemini-xii/
- https://www.nasa.gov/johnson/neutral-buoyancy-laboratory/
- https://www.nasa.gov/humans-in-space/astronauts/former-astronauts/
- https://tl2k.org/history/
- https://freemasonry.bcy.ca/biography/spacemason/index.html
- https://scottishritenmj.org/blog/to-the-moon-and-back-with-buzz-aldrin
- https://nationalsojourners.org/colonel-edwin-buzz-aldrin/
- Portrait image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Buzz_Aldrin.jpg (Public domain)
Life & Masonic Timeline
NASA, via Wikimedia Commons · Public domain · Source