Buzz Aldrin service. His father and father's close friend General Jimmy Doolittle attended the formal retirement ceremony. Aldrin's autobiographies "Return to Earth," (1973) and "Magnificent Desolation" (2009), recounted his struggles with clinical depression and alcoholism in the years after leaving NASA. On September 9, 2002, Aldrin was lured to a Beverly Hills hotel on the pretext of being interviewed for a Japanese children's television show on the subject of space. When he arrived, Moon landing conspiracy theorist Bart Sibrel accosted him with a film crew and demanded he swear on a Bible that the Moon landings were not faked. After a brief
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