Buzz Aldrin "First on the Moon: The Untold Story", Aldrin told an interviewer that they saw an unidentified flying object. He told David Morrison, a NASA Astrobiology Institute senior scientist, in 2006 that the documentary makers omitted the crew's conclusion that they probably saw one of the four detached spacecraft adapter panels. Their S-IVB upper stage was away, but the four panels had been jettisoned before the separation maneuver so they would closely follow the Apollo 11 spacecraft until the first mid-course correction. When Aldrin appeared on "The Howard Stern Show" on August 15, 2007, Stern asked him about the supposed UFO
Buzz Aldrin (CMP) and Aldrin as Lunar Module Pilot (LMP). Their assignment as the backup crew of Apollo 9 was officially announced on November 20, 1967. Due to design and manufacturing delays in the lunar module (LM), Apollo 8 and Apollo 9 swapped prime and backup crews, and Armstrong's crew became the backup for Apollo 8. Under the normal crew rotation scheme, Armstrong was then expected to command Apollo 11. Michael Collins, the CMP on the Apollo 8 prime crew, experienced trouble with his legs that doctors diagnosed as a requiring surgery. Lovell took his place on the Apollo 8 crew. When