NASA Astronaut Group 3 experience was substituted. This applied to Aldrin, Anders, Cernan, Chaffee, Cunningham and Schweickart; all the others were test pilots. NASA Astronaut Group 3 Astronaut Group 3 was a group of fourteen astronauts selected by NASA. Their selection was announced in October 1963. Four died in training accidents before they could fly in space. All of the surviving ten flew in the Apollo program; five also flew Gemini missions. Aldrin, Bean, Cernan and Scott walked on the Moon. They are the only ones of the first 19 NASA astronaut groups to have no members at all fly on the Space Shuttle.
Buzz Aldrin return to the Air Force. During his NASA career, he had spent 289 hours and 53 minutes in space, of which 7 hours and 52 minutes spent was in EVA. He hoped to become Commandant of Cadets at the United States Air Force Academy, but this job was given to his West Point classmate Hoyt S. Vandenberg Jr. Aldrin was assigned as Commandant of the USAF Aerospace Research Pilot School at Edwards Air Force Base, California, on July 1, 1971. Aldrin had neither managerial nor test pilot experience, but a third of the training curriculum was devoted to astronaut training,