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 center for Montclair High School's undefeated 1946 state champion team. His father wanted him to go to the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, and enrolled him at nearby Severn School, a preparatory school for Annapolis, and even secured him an appointment from Albert W. Hawkes, one of the United States Senators from New Jersey. Aldrin attended Severn School in 1946, but had other ideas about his future career. He suffered from seasickness, and considered that ships would be a distraction from flying airplanes. He faced down his father and told him to ask Hawkes to change the nomination