Buzz Aldrin Buzz Aldrin was born in New Jersey on January 20, 1930. He was educated at West Point, graduating with honors in 1951, third in his class. He flew Sabre Jets in the Korean War. After the war he earned a Doctorate in Astronautics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He has logged 4500 hours of flying time, 290 of which were in space. He was Backup Command Module Pilot for Apollo VIII, the first crewed flight around the moon. Then, on July 20, 1969, Buzz and Neil Armstrong made their historic Apollo XI moon walk, becoming the first two humans to set foot on another world. This event had the largest worldwide television audience in history. Dr. Aldrin continues to work in space exploration on earth by participating in the development of future space programs and space education. He is also an author. Buzz wrote an autobiography, "Return to Earth" in 1974, and in 1989 wrote, "Men from Earth," describing his trip to the moon. In 1996, he published his first science fiction novel.