Kraft added that nobody criticised Aldrin but that they did not want him to be humanity’s ambassador. On the other hand, Aldrin desperately wanted the honour and wasn’t quiet in letting it be known. Armstrong was calm, quiet and had absolute confidence. He said they knew damn well that the first guy on the moon was going to be a modern-day Charles Lindbergh. Later, flight director Chris Kraft explained Nasa’s thinking. It could technically have been Aldrin – they just had to swap sides before they put their backpacks on. At a press conference Nasa announced that the “plans called for Mr Armstrong to be the first man out after the moon landing a few minutes later Colonel Aldrin will follow.” Aldrin later said he believed that the layout of the lunar module dictated that Armstrong go out first because he was on the right and the door swung towards Aldrin. On 14 April the speculation came to an end. I knew the media would never let that person alone.” “In truth I didn’t really want to be the first person to step on the moon. He was simply behaving as a competitive air force pilot would. He said that he hadn’t been soliciting the older astronauts’ support. As of February 1969 that was their plan as well, Aldrin maintained. In all the previous Gemini and Apollo missions, the spacewalks were taken by the junior officer while the commander remained inside the space capsule. Writing some 40 years later in his book Magnificent Desolation, he said that during training in early 1969 he recognised that the great responsibility would fall upon his shoulders. Aldrin desperately wanted the honour and wasn't quiet about it Since I shared an office with Neil Armstrong, who was away training that day, I found Aldrin’s arguments both offensive and ridiculous.” Armstrong was calm and confident. Gene Cernan (the last person to walk on the moon) said: “He came flapping into my office at the Manned Spaceflight Center one day like an angry stork, laden with charts and graphs and statistics, arguing what he considered to be obvious – that he, the lunar module pilot, and not Neil Armstrong, should be the first down the ladder on Apollo 11. Aldrin wrote later (although he claimed it was done by his co-author): “He equivocated a minute or so, then with a coolness I had not known he possessed, he said that the decision was quite historical and he didn’t want to rule out the possibility of going first.” Armstrong later said that he could not remember the conversation.Īldrin talked to colleagues for some it was seen as lobbying behind the scenes. He himself was technically still a member of the air force, though he had not served for 10 years, except to maintain his flying hours. Aldrin was angry: Armstrong was a civilian.
Photograph: Niel Armstrong/AP/Press Association Imagesīut word began to filter out that it would be Armstrong. Neil Armstrong’s photograph of Buzz Aldrin on the moon, July 1969.