by Buzz Aldrin
When NASA asked me to consider an opportunity that would require my visiting Sweden, the land of my ancestors, I thought that perhaps turning it into a family vacation might help. We spent fourteen days in Sweden, and while there I received the Swedish Order of the Vasa, an honor presented to Swedish-Americans who had accomplished a great achievement. I guess going to the moon qualified. And in some ways this trip made up for the fact that we did not visit Sweden during the worldwide Apollo 11 goodwill tour.
Because it was a technology-oriented trip rather than a diplomatic one, I spent some time speaking at various engineering and aeronautical functions, but I tried to focus on my family more than on official groups. And to some extent we were successful. Our youngest son, Andy, and I went scuba diving down to a sunken ship in the harbor; Mike found a new pet, a borzoi puppy that we ended up shipping back to Houston; and Jan, Joan, and I enjoyed getting to know more about my relatives in Värmland, where my grandfather had been born.
While in Sweden, I had been scheduled by the U.S. State Department to meet with King Gustaf VI, but just prior to leaving, I received a notice that the king had to cancel. The suggested date for rescheduling was five days after we planned to leave the country. That was a bit of a disappointment, but not an inconvenience. Then we received word from the State Department that the meeting with the king was not optional. Our trip was extended by five days, and King Gustaf VI and I had a pleasant visit. But it bothered me that I was once again being moved around as little more than a pawn in a diplomatic chess game, with little regard for how it inconvenienced my family, our hosts, or me.
Moreover, the NASA protocol officer who had accompanied us to Sweden and was supposed to facilitate our trip proved inefficient and a constant source of irritation. It may have been unfair to do so, but I took his inattention and insolence as a reflection of NASA’s attitude toward me. Had I not given them eight years of my life? Could they not find someone better than this fellow to help take care of my family and me on a foreign trip? I felt deserted. The more I thought about it, the more it bothered me.
Back home in Houston, as I reviewed our trip, I slowly slid into the doldrums. I found myself spending most of the day or evening staring at the television set. Joan and the children didn’t know what to do for me, and I passed off my blues as fatigue from our trip. Nobody mentioned that the family had been just as tired as I had been, and they were functioning just fine.
During my periods of melancholy, I again pondered my future. What was I going to do? I was barely forty years of age; I couldn’t continue this way. I pulled myself together and decided to go to Washington, D.C., to meet with the Air Force chief of staff to consider my possible return to the Air Force. Although I had several business interests, nothing challenged me enough to want to pour myself into a career, so resuming my status as a colonel in the Air Force seemed a viable option.
Meanwhile, NASA was moving ahead with preliminary plans for developing the space shuttle program that would follow the Apollo program. When NASA asked me to be part of a committee to assess the design of the shuttle, I willingly took on the task. Perhaps there still was a way to continue my activities at NASA, and work on concepts that would contribute to the future of manned space exploration. So I dived into the project. We were looking at the features of a fully reusable spacecraft system in which both the shuttle and the booster rockets that had separated after liftoff would fly back to Earth for a runway landing. These rocket boosters used liquid propellant, as we had on the Saturn V, in keeping with Wernher von Braun’s premise that we should never launch human beings on boosters with solid propellant because of the associated hazards. But squabbles arose between NASA’s flight centers as to whether the rocket boosters should be manned or unmanned. I probably surprised a lot of people by supporting the unmanned booster, and a number of the committee members agreed. After all our discussions, however, our plans were tabled. Ultimately, due to funding restrictions, NASA would opt for the cheap fix over the costly runway-landing reusable liquid boosters, and use solid propellant boosters for the shuttle that are then dropped in the ocean to be recovered and refurbished for further flights.
Ordinarily such debate wouldn’t have affected me greatly; since my days at MIT, I was accustomed to the give-and-take of rocket science. But for some reason the futility of these discussions sent me back into a negative mindset again. Even today it is one of the few regrets I have from my time at NASA, since our space program would be much different if we had stuck to liquid rocket boosters, rather than adopting the solid rockets that have caused so many problems with the shuttle, including the first shuttle mishap, the Challenger explosion in 1986.
Fortunately for me, in October 1970, NASA gave me an assignment that I thought I might enjoy. Two Russian cosmonauts, Andrian Nikolayev and Vitaly Sevastyanov, were coming to the United States, and NASA wanted me to join them on their tour of American space centers. This was years before the Cold War had ended or the Berlin Wall had been torn down, so to have two cosmonauts poking around in U.S. space centers was not like taking them on a trip to Disneyland. Nevertheless, America has always operated its space program out in the open, with success or failure readily seen by the world. Thanks to our tremendous technological expertise, and a little luck, we have had far more successes than failures. The Soviets conducted their space program as clandestinely as possible, which always gave rise to questions about their intentions, whether they viewed space exploration as something to help mankind or merely as another weapons-delivery system in their already dangerous arsenal. Unquestionably, part of what motivated President Kennedy and succeeding presidents to pursue the “space race” was to make sure that the Soviet Union did not gain a military or technological advantage over us.
Yet, despite our suspicions, the American astronauts and the Soviet cosmonauts shared an explorer’s mentality. We wanted to know what the other side knew. I felt great appreciation for what the Russians had accomplished, and we actually got along quite well, although we had to communicate through an interpreter. We invited the Soviets to view our entire operation, including our launch facilities at Cape Kennedy, but the Soviets refused, knowing that if they accepted a tour of our launch facilities, it would be almost obligatory to invite Americans to tour their launch center in Tyuratam, and the Soviets were not open to doing that.
We did tour the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, as well as the Space Center in Houston, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and many American tourist sites. We consumed a great deal of vodka, and the trip was considered a huge step forward in space cooperation on both sides. Although when the Soviet cosmonauts were asked in a press conference before their departure why they hadn’t visited the Kennedy Space Center, they replied with a straight face through an interpreter that they hadn’t been invited to visit the Cape. So much for our new openness!
Nevertheless, with the acknowledged success in my favor, I returned to Washington, D.C., and met with Secretary of the Air Force Robert Seamans, and several top generals. Secretary Seamans was a friend of my father’s from MIT, and I felt I had an ally in him for making my return to the Air Force more amenable.
Two jobs in the upper echelons of the Air Force held potential: one was the commandant of the Air Force Academy in Colorado. This position especially appealed to me since I felt that I could be a positive role model for the cadets at the Academy. Secretary Seamans seemed to indicate that he thought this position might be a good fit for me, too.
The second interesting possibility was that of commandant of the USAF Test Pilot School, to be renamed the Aerospace Research Pilot School at Edwards Air Force Base in California. When I’d first applied at NASA to become an astronaut, I was turned down because I had not attended a test pilot school, so the possibility of heading up such a facility was intriguing. Either of those positions would most likely lead to a promotion to brigadier general, and that piqued my interest as well. I indicated my desire to return to the Air Force and resume my care
er as an officer, although I asked that a move not be made until the end of our children’s school year in June 1971. The Air Force brass was delighted.
When the Air Force extended its offer to me, however, the only position on the table was commandant of the USAF Test Pilot School at Edwards Air Force Base in California. The position at the Air Force Academy was not even an option. I learned later that the Academy’s new commandant would be the son of the legendary Air Force general Hoyt Vandenberg. Although the job at Edwards would be challenging, and they were training pilots for the future shuttle flights, my spirits sank once again. I had allowed my heart to get set on the Air Force Academy, and Joan was already mentally packing and planning our move.
Nevertheless, on Tuesday morning, January 14, 1971, I was back in Washington, D.C., to announce officially that I was leaving NASA and the space program in June, and would be returning to the Air Force to serve as the commandant of the test pilot school at Edwards. I tried to put the best light on my new responsibilities, noting that heading up the school would be a new learning experience for me.
Although I could not have imagined it at the time, I was about to learn more than I ever wanted to know.
6
FLYING HIGH,
FLYING LOW
ON JULY 1, 1971, I OFFICIALLY COMMENCED MY ROLE AS commandant of the USAF Test Pilot School at Edwards Air Force Base. I was welcomed by the forty test pilot students in the program, who were excited and a bit awestruck to have a moonwalker Apollo astronaut as their new commandant—especially since the school was becoming known for supplying a pool of astronauts to the space program. In fact, the name of the school had been officially changed to the Aerospace Research Pilot School at Edwards Air Force Base, California, to reflect this goal. Two thirds of the one-year program was similar to the Navy’s test pilot program, but the last third of the program was geared to astronaut training. A fierce competitiveness has always existed between the U.S. Navy and the U.S. Air Force. Although it may seem odd to someone unfamiliar with the history of American military, the Navy was flying planes before the Air Force even existed as a separate branch of the U.S. armed forces. In 1971 the Navy was still the U.S. leader when it came to aircraft, but the Air Force wanted to be in charge of America’s fledgling space program, so a space mission simulator had been installed in the school, one of the first of its kind, offering simulations of an entire space mission, including rendezvous and docking in space.
Later that month, at the crack of dawn on July 26, my family and I watched the launch of Apollo 15 on a portable TV while on the beach in Carpenteria, California. I was familiar with every step of the launch and watched carefully, but I felt no remorse for not being a part of it. A mere two years earlier it had been me sitting atop a rocket, ready to travel to the moon, but I was now content to be sitting on the beach— or at least I thought I was.
As the commandant of the test pilot school, I was the chief administrator, but I knew the test pilot instructors in the program would probably be teaching me a lot, not having been a test pilot myself. None of the students seemed to mind my lack of test-pilot experience; quite the contrary, they seemed honored to know me. They were a good group of students, and I enjoyed getting to know and encourage them, along with interacting with the instructors and occasionally flying myself. At the time, we were having the students fly advanced supersonic F-104 Starfighter aircraft and the modified NF-104 aerospace trainer rocket-powered jets that could soar to over 100,000 feet, in effect becoming spacecraft in thin air. The exercises tested each student’s ability to fly with extraordinary precision under unusual conditions, including zero gravity high-angle maneuvers, and steep landing approaches, and required the pilots to report on the performance of the plane in those conditions.
As much as the students appreciated my presence out in the field to observe their test flights, and as much as they were fascinated by my moonwalking experiences, they were equally, if not more, intrigued by my early years as a fighter pilot. While a number of them had joined the military to become fighter pilots, few of them had actually seen combat action at war. I had.
I graduated from West Point, number three in my class in June 1951. Thanks to my high academic rating, I had several choices for pursuing my military career. The Air Force was most attractive to me because I had wanted to fly from the time I took my first flight with my father when I was only two years old.
From West Point I went straight to flight training school at Bartow Air Force Base in Florida, and then to Brian Air Force Base in Texas, where I earned my wings. The Air Force needed pilots of all sorts, but my goal was to become a jet fighter pilot. The competition was intense, and after eighteen months of concentrated training, I qualified as an F-86 Sabre jet pilot.
The Korean War—or the Korean Conflict, as it is often referred to today, although it was definitely a war to those who fought in it— had been raging for a full year, ever since Communist North Korea, equipped by the Soviet Union, invaded Democratic South Korea, backed by the United States. Before long the Chinese also entered the fighting, and it looked as though things could escalate further at any time.
Not surprisingly, with Korea still a powder keg, I put in for combat duty but by the time I arrived there in December 1952, the ground war had slowed and cease-fire negotiations were underway. The battle in the air was still furious, but because their defenses were disintegrating, the North Koreans, Chinese, and Soviets had moved their air bases as far north as possible, north of the Yalu River, the dividing line between Korea and China. American commanders ordered their pilots not to cross the Yalu into China, even if engaged in aerial combat. But the standing orders were often ignored, as U.S. fighter jets gave chase to Soviet-built MiG-15s, their elusive and dangerous adversaries.
I was assigned to the 16th Fighter Squadron of the 51st Interceptor Wing at Suwon Air Base, located about twenty miles south of Seoul. By then, American pilots regularly flew all the way north to the Yalu, where they could often catch the enemy at lower altitudes, or better yet, still on the ground at their air bases. We affectionately but respectfully referred to that area as “MiG Alley.”
I flew a total of sixty-six combat missions over the war zone while I was stationed in Korea. Many days, I was simply patrolling the air, hunting for MiGs that might be heading south toward our troops, often seeing little more than the mountainous terrain below and the blue sky above. It was never a joy ride, though. I was constantly on alert. Occasionally, I’d spot white exhaust contrails high overhead, or the glint of the sun reflecting off a wing below, and I knew that I was not alone in the sky. MiGs were nearby, lurking, looking for their opportunity to blow me to bits.
The Soviet-built MiG-15 was a formidable foe, and had a definite advantage over our American-built fighter jets. In a dogfight, the planes were closely matched because of our technical superiority, but the MiG could fly more than 2,000 feet higher than our F-86 Sabres, which had a maximum altitude of 49,000 feet. They could also fly faster, since their planes were stripped down for combat and carried a smaller fuel load than ours. The MiG was a wicked fighting machine, too, fortified with a 37-millimeter cannon that could send an F-86 screaming to the ground with one strike; it also housed two 23-millimeter automatic guns that could make Swiss cheese out of a plane in a single burst of fire. Because of the MiGs deadly firepower, the one thing a U.S. pilot avoided at all costs was letting a MiG get on his tail.
I shot down two MiGs while in Korea, my first kill coming on May 14, 1953. The guys at Edwards loved to hear me tell about it, always wanting me to embellish the story, but I never did, because it was a rather inglorious engagement. I was flying just south of the Yalu when I spotted an enemy fighter jet flying straight and level, probably oblivious to my existence. I trained my guns on him and fired. The MiG spun hard and headed for the ground, the pilot quickly ejecting from the cockpit. The camera on my gun recorded the entire incident, clearly showing the plane being destroyed and the pilot’s desperate ejection. Pho
to frames from that film sequence appeared in the next issue of Life magazine. When my father found out that I was the one who had brought down the MiG, he could not have been more proud.
My second battle with a MiG nearly took me out of this world— literally. On June 7, 1953, I was scheduled for a mission with three other pilots attached to the 16th “Blue Tail” Squadron (the tails on our planes had a checkerboard design with a blue stripe), but as we taxied to the runway, my number four wingman aborted, leaving three of us in the formation. Just ahead of us, taking off from the runway, were four Sabre Jets from the 39th “Yellow Tail” Squadron in a Tiger flight formation commanded by Marine Captain Jack Bolt. But their number four pilot also aborted, so I radioed my Wing Commander to take leave and join up with the Yellow Tails. I took to the air in formation with the Tigers, but they were flying the new F-model Sabres with a 20-knot airspeed advantage, with more power and a bigger wing than my F-86 E-model. Try as I might, I was having a hard time keeping up with them.
When Bolt’s team dove toward a broad valley farther to the north, I followed them all the way, trailing at a distance. I soon found myself flying north of the Yalu, alone. With my airspeed indicator pegged, and the F-86 approaching Mach 1, the speed of sound—a prohibited speed for my Sabre—I streaked below 15,000 feet. My aircraft began to roll and became more difficult to control as I pushed it to the limit, following the Tigers into heavier air. I grasped the control stick as hard as I could, holding on for dear life, trying to maintain my airplane’s stability. Finally, the heavier air slowed me down enough that I could regain control of the aircraft, but I was still flying mighty fast.
