Buzz Aldrin while Command Module Pilot Michael Collins remained in lunar orbit. A Presbyterian elder, Aldrin became the first person to hold a religious ceremony on the Moon when he privately took communion. Upon leaving NASA in 1971, he became Commandant of the U.S. Air Force Test Pilot School. He retired from the Air Force in 1972, after 21 years of service. His autobiographies "Return to Earth," (1973) and "Magnificent Desolation" (2009), recount his struggles with clinical depression and alcoholism in the years after leaving NASA. He continued to advocate for space exploration, particularly a manned mission to Mars, and developed the
Buzz Aldrin's Race Into Space that Bronner added the feature of astronaut/cosmonaut skills and morale, which previously made no impact on the performance of a mission. Astronaut/cosmonaut skills were initially randomized at the start of each game. Strategic Visions and Interplay showed a demo of "Buzz Aldrin's Race Into Space" at the 1992 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Nevada, and also held a reception at Caesars Palace where Buzz Aldrin spoke about his experiences in the space program. Software testing began in September 1992, which proved a daunting task: one tester calculated that with all mission types and hardware permutations factored in, there were