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 He chose the United States Air Force, which had become a separate service in 1947, while Aldrin was still at West Point, and did not yet have its own academy. He was commissioned as a second lieutenant, and underwent basic flight training in T-6 Texans at Bartow Air Base in Florida. His classmates included Sam Johnson, who later became a prisoner of war in Vietnam. The two became lifelong friends. At one point, Aldrin attempted a double Immelmann turn in a T-28 Trojan and suffered a grayout. He recovered in time to pull out at , averting what would have