Return to Earth (film) Return to Earth (film) Return to Earth is a 1976 American biopic TV movie that originally aired on May 14, 1976 on ABC. The film stars Cliff Robertson as astronaut Buzz Aldrin and Shirley Knight as Joan Aldrin. Based upon Aldrin's 1973 book of the same name, the film dramatizes the emotional difficulties of Aldrin's life following his trip to the moon on Apollo 11. The film was directed by Jud Taylor, and Aldrin served as a consultant. Based upon his own book of his ordeals, the film is story of Buzz Aldrin, the second man to walk upon the
Buzz Aldrin a parachute to open. For his service in Korea, he was awarded two Distinguished Flying Crosses and three Air Medals. Aldrin's year-long tour ended in December 1953, by which time the fighting in Korea had ended. Aldrin was assigned as an aerial gunnery instructor at Nellis. In December 1954 he became an aide-de-camp to Brigadier General Don Z. Zimmerman, the Dean of Faculty at the nascent United States Air Force Academy, which opened in 1955. That same year, he graduated from the Squadron Officer School at Maxwell Air Force Base in Alabama. From 1956 to 1959 he flew F-100 Super