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
Edwin Eugene Aldrin Sr. a reservist until he retired from the Air Force Reserve with the rank of colonel on 1 May 1956. He later became a consultant to the manned space flight safety director of the NASA. Aldrin died in San Francisco, California, on 28 December 1974, while he was visiting his daughter there, and was buried in Arlington National Cemetery. He was survived by his sister, two daughters, and son, Buzz Aldrin. His wife Marion suffered from depression and killed herself in 1968. He is commemorated by the Edwin E. Aldrin, Sr. Award, which is presented to an Air Force Institute of