Magnificent Desolation

by Buzz Aldrin

  Neon-colored original “Moonwalk” screen prints were created by Andy Warhol in 1987, based on the “visor shot” photo that Neil took of me on the moon. Warhol added the American flag into his art, and made two versions in contrasting color schemes, one in neon yellow, red, and blue, and other in a deep neon pink and violet palette. If you look closely at the visor of my helmet in his prints, you can see how he inscribed his initials “AW” in abstract strokes. Lois and I are fortunate to have one of Warhol’s “Moonwalk” prints hanging in our home.

  Promoting myself as a potential commercial pitchman while protecting myself against the unauthorized use of my image sometimes created a tenuous balance. One of the more awkward instances came about as a result of the wristwatch I wore on the moon. As Omega did with all the astronauts, I was given one of their Speedmaster watches as a Gemini astronaut, which I had worn during my Gemini 12 flight. I also wore an Omega Speedmaster during the Apollo 11 mission. The watch is clearly visible in many of the pictures of me on the moon, so it could easily be assumed that my timepiece was the most famous wrist-watch in the world. It was optional to wear while we were walking on the surface of the moon. Neil chose not to wear his. And few things are less necessary when walking around on the moon than knowing what time it is in Houston, Texas. Nonetheless, being a watch guy, I decided to strap the Speedmaster onto my right wrist around the outside of my bulky spacesuit.

  For years, although I did not realize it at the time, the Omega watch company used photos of me on the moon in their advertisements. They paid nothing for the use of those photos, neither to NASA nor to me. But they were certainly getting a lot of bang for their buck on that donated watch.

  Later, at Omega’s invitation, Lois and I accompanied some of their company representatives to Riyadh. On the plane, I talked with one of the Omega executives about my recent discovery that Omega was using my picture in a print ad promoting Omega watches as the first watch on the moon. I suggested to the Omega representative that we should strike some sort of agreement under which we could promote their watches, and I could receive some compensation for their using my image. I had no intention of suing; I was hoping to strike up a business deal. The Omega representative surprised me. “You’ll probably have to sue us,” he said bluntly.

  Upon my return, I realized that he was probably right. I hired a lawyer to send some letters, still hoping to work out a deal, but Omega wasn’t willing to budge. After a long season of lawyer runarounds, I dismissed the lawsuit, deciding it wasn’t worth pursuing any longer. At the same time, I would think that Omega had to pay something to other celebrity spokespersons for wearing Omega watches in far less conspicuous places than the moon.

  Not one to harbor ill feelings, I can see two positive results that came from the Omega situation. First, thanks to my efforts to negotiate with Omega, new standards were put in place as to how commercial companies should compensate astronauts for their photos when used in advertisements. Astronauts now benefit more fully from the “right of publicity” to control their image as shown in photos taken of them during spacewalks and moonwalks, even though their faces may not be visible behind the helmets of their spacesuits. More personally, I later struck up a venture with Bulova to create two outstanding Accutron watches—the Eagle Pilot and the limited edition Astronaut—which include features I found helpful in space, and which both have my signature engraved on their casebacks. In fact, Bulova Accutron provided the original timepiece in the Columbia command module for our trip to the moon, so the relationship has been a natural one.

  Forty years after I stood on the moon’s surface with my Omega Speedmaster watch on my wrist, Omega made a great effort to overcome any problems we had in the past. They invited me to Basel, Switzerland, to attend a celebration of our moon landing along with some of the other Apollo astronauts at the BaselWorld watch fair. They were very gracious hosts and presented me with a beautiful new limited edition Speedmaster watch that commemorates Apollo 11. This was a welcomed gesture since my original Omega Speedmaster was stolen on the way to the Smithsonian.

  A much more sticky situation arose, however, when I discovered that the Bermuda-based liquor company Bacardi-Martini was using the “visor shot” in its advertising campaign to promote Bacardi rum. In the print ad, a bottle of rum was shown splashing its contents onto the image of me standing on the moon, and as if to suggest that rum transforms everything to a party atmosphere, the lower half of my spacesuit had turned into a pair of swimmer’s legs in swim trunks and fins. It made a mockery of this iconic image. What’s more, I was just about to celebrate twenty years of sobriety at the time.

  I had a new legal team in place thanks to Lois’s daughter, Lisa Cannon, who brought in entertainment litigation attorney Robert (Rob) C. O’Brien to help her handle my business affairs. It turned out that this was Bacardi’s second attempt to use the visor shot in its campaigns. The first time, a few years earlier, Bacardi’s ad agency had claimed that since the photograph was in the public domain, they thought they could use it freely. When informed of my right of publicity in the photo, they agreed not to use it. Apparently the current advertising arm of the company was not aware of this prior agreement.

  Rob O’Brien went to work, and the local media soon picked up on the case. When we both appeared on the nationally syndicated entertainment news program Extra, Rob told the viewers, “Whatever the legal merits of the case are, this is a terrible way to treat an American hero.” The show’s host then asked me how I felt about my image being used by an alcohol company.

  “I don’t want to become Bacardi’s version of a Joe Camel,” I replied.

  The case was settled successfully, and Bacardi even made a public statement: “By using a portion of the visor shot in the advertisements, Bacardi did not intend to cause the public to recognize Aldrin in the advertisements nor believe that Aldrin endorses, or has ever endorsed, Bacardi products…. Bacardi has a great amount of respect for Aldrin, is sympathetic to his concerns and, therefore, has apologized to him for publishing the advertisements.”

  Because of the success of my cases, I was able to help out other astronauts in protecting their images. In one such instance, a toy company, Action Products, was using the photographs of Apollo 12 commander Pete Conrad and Apollo 15 lunar module pilot Jim Irwin, along with some of my photos, on the packaging of their Apollo spacecraft and rocket toy models. Since both Pete and Jim had passed away, their widows, Nancy Conrad and Mary Irwin, were trying to protect their rights. So Rob O’Brien represented all of us, and we proceeded on a united front. At one point, intimations were made in the settlement discussions that Action Products was willing to settle only with me and not with the others. But we stuck together, and after a ruling in our favor by the federal judge in the case, our efforts had a successful outcome. Actually, Action Products came around full circle, and Nancy and I ended up settling the case for Mary, her, and me over dinner with the company’s president. Later I even licensed my image for the company’s handsome three-foot-tall model of the Saturn V rocket.

  As a footnote to the Omega story, all of the astronauts were required by NASA to return their Speedmaster watches after their missions, which I did. The watches are housed in the vaults of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., and several are on display at air and space museums around the country. All but one of the watches are accounted for. The Omega Speedmaster I wore on the moon has been missing ever since I entrusted it, along with other artifacts, to NASA’s Johnson Space Center to be packed and shipped to the Smithsonian. The box and artifacts made it, but not the watch. At least one person claims to have discovered the original watch on a California beach, and sued me and the U.S. government to obtain title to the watch. As part of the case, the experts at the Smithsonian examined the watch and compared it against the watches in their possession. Lisa, Rob, and I also participated in the procedure. Wearing white cotton gloves, I was able to hold my watch from Gemini 12 for the first time in 35 years, as that timepiece a
nd others were compared against the purported Apollo 11 watch. I understand that the Smithsonian determined that the plaintiff’s watch was not one of the NASA watches, and the case was dismissed. People have told me that the Speedmaster I wore on the moon is the Holy Grail of watches for serious collectors, and I assume that the search for it will go on.

  FORTUNATELY, MOST OF my commercial endeavors were about building positive relationships, rather than chasing after infringements. And while I enjoyed all of these ventures and remained constantly on the lookout for more good opportunities, as we neared the thirtieth anniversary of the landing of Apollo 11, I seemed to get a second wind when it came to the development of viable options for civilian space travel. I was sixty-nine years of age, but I felt more energized than ever. Lois handled the business, while I poured myself into space projects. “Buzz, you have found your niche,” she said with a laugh. “You work as if you are still on assignment for NASA, trying to develop better rockets, a better space station, and spaceships to take us to Mars.”

  Lois was right; I was thrilled with life, and excited about the possibilities of promoting adventure space travel as a logical extension of the world’s $3.5-trillion tourist industry. I got even more fired up when I heard that a wealthy friend of mine was willing to put up whatever it might cost to become America’s first space tourist—even if that meant flying into orbit in a Russian spacecraft.

  19

  GOOD-BYE BLUES,

  HELLO SPACE VIEWS

  ON SATURDAY, APRIL 29, 2000, LOIS, LISA, AND I WERE preparing for a trip to Hong Kong, where I was scheduled for two important speaking engagements, one keynote speech for the Pacific Asia Travel Association, and one presentation for a British company’s campaign to enhance computer education in China. Both of these engagements had been booked by the Harry Walker Agency, with whom we worked on high-end events.

  We were scheduled to fly from Los Angeles to Hong Kong that very night. The evening before, Lois and I had joined a couple for dinner at The Grill in Beverly Hills, during which I broke off a front tooth in my lower jaw. It was more irritating than painful, but it definitely bothered me. Lois dropped me off at the dentist early Saturday morning, but the dentist could only perform a stopgap measure, and I would have to come back the following week. I was frustrated that the dentist could not adequately repair the tooth in time for the trip.

  My son Andy stopped by later that afternoon to visit, and he and I talked space for a while. We reviewed some of the roadblocks that StarBooster was facing when it came to attracting the substantial investment needed to develop our rocket designs. Andy worked in the aerospace industry and was constantly trying to help me find a way to bring my ideas to fruition.

  “I wish I could help you find the funds,” Andy said, “but Boeing has their own designs to get their new contracts from NASA. Everybody is trying to come up with the next big idea for the next generation of spacecraft after the space shuttle is retired.”

  Andy seemed convinced that although the United States had led the world into space, NASA was dragging its heels when it came to space tourism, and the Russians were most likely going to start taking paying passengers into space. Many of those passengers would be Americans. I knew that Andy was right because a friend of ours, Dennis Tito, was already planning to travel into space on a Russian spacecraft.

  Andy and I talked further about the latest rocket designs I had been working on with Hu Davis, a former NASA engineer, who now was my co-designer for the StarBooster family of rockets. In light of NASA’s decision to continue flying the shuttle for at least another twenty years, there was an opportunity for my StarBooster design team to submit a proposal to NASA for our reusable fly-back boosters, along with our designs for the StarCore heavy-lift reusable launcher, and the StarBird reusable orbiter. When Andy left, for some reason I became discouraged. I was glad that the Russians and, more recently, even the Chinese were pursing space exploration, but I just couldn’t comprehend why America had to allow the Russians and Chinese to leapfrog ahead of us in space travel when we had all the elements we needed to be clearly superior in technology. We just weren’t using them in the right combination. I knew that my StarBooster team had a design for a reusable rocket booster that could lead to airline-style tourism, while also taking care of future launch needs for NASA. But I couldn’t get NASA’s attention. The more I considered it, the more depressed I became, and thought, Aw, what’s the use? I went into our bedroom, turned on the television, and flopped down on the bed.

  After a while, Lois came in, and when she saw me lying on the bed, just staring at the screen, she said, “Buzz, come on, we have to get ready to go to China. I need to get your suitcase packed. I have several nice suits here. Which would you like to wear for your speeches? Do you like the blue suit with the light blue shirt—”

  “I’m not going,” I said, interrupting Lois’s wardrobe check.

  “What? What do you mean, you aren’t going?”

  “Just what I said, Lois. I’m not going to Hong Kong.”

  “Buzz, you have to go to Hong Kong. You have two very important speeches to give.”

  “I’m not going!”

  Lois could tell by my demeanor that I was serious, but she kept trying to encourage me, to get me up and ready to go. “Buzz Aldrin, you are going on the plane tonight!”

  “Lois, I’m not going,” I said emphatically. I got up and walked out of the bedroom, out into our living room, and kept right on going. I walked out of our condo without telling Lois where I was heading, and let the door slam behind me.

  One of the reasons I didn’t tell Lois where I was going was that I didn’t know. I just knew I had to get out for some air. I pressed the elevator button, thinking at first that I would head down to the ground level and walk, but then, when the elevator door opened, I pressed the number for the top floor instead of going down. At the top floor, I went over to the fire-escape door, pushed it open, and climbed the stairs to the rooftop of our building. From the rooftop, ahead of me, I could see all the way to the Pacific Ocean, several miles away to the west, and to the east, the lights of downtown L.A.’s skyscrapers. Behind me, four lanes of busy Saturday afternoon traffic on Wilshire Boulevard whizzed by the condo tower. I walked over to the edge of the roof and looked down. It was certainly a long drop to the street. Heights had never bothered me, so I simply stood along the edge and looked out at the sights below.

  How long I stayed on that rooftop, I’m not really sure, but it must have been longer than I thought, because when I finally went downstairs, Lois’s daughter Lisa was there, and the women were in a tizzy. Apparently Lois had called Lisa when she realized that I was adamantly refusing to go to China, and Lisa had raced across town from Santa Monica, a good twenty-to thirty-minute drive. Both had been frantically looking for me, in the lobby, in the exercise room, everywhere.

  “Buzz, where have you been?” Lois implored. I could tell she had been worried about me.

  “I was on the roof,” I replied.

  “On the roof!” Lois and Lisa practically shouted in unison. Apparently my answer did nothing to allay the women’s concerns.

  “Buzz, what were you doing on the roof?” Lois wanted to know.

  “Getting some air.”

  Lois was troubled by my going up on the roof, though she continued packing for the trip nonetheless, and I remained equally as determined. “I’m not going. I won’t go, not with my tooth like this,” I said. The tooth was a problem, but it was a lower tooth, so it didn’t really look bad, but it was a good, legitimate excuse. I went back into the bedroom and crawled in bed. The blue funk was back.

  I told Lois and Lisa I just “couldn’t do it in my current state of mind.” I couldn’t control the way I was feeling. Lois knew, however, that this could be devastating to my reputation as a professional speaker. In all the years since I had met Lois, we had only canceled one previous high-end speaking engagement because of illness, and while everyone understands that cancellations by spe
akers, musicians, and other performers can always be a possibility, it is never a good thing when it happens, and it is always inconvenient for the sponsor and disappointing to the audience. Just as in the space program, the slogan “Failure is not an option” was well known, so in working with speakers’ bureaus, the adage could be adapted to “Cancellations are not an option.”

  Lois and Lisa started scrambling. I knew that my refusal was a self-destructive act, and at that moment I didn’t care. I tended to give myself permission to do that which was not in my own best interests. But Lois refused to give up. She felt sure that I would get on that plane the next day, if I could just have a little time to mull things over. Lisa called the agency and explained that I had a problem with my tooth, and asked if they could reschedule my speech from the first part of the event to the last part, to allow me enough time to get there. Because it was a three-day conference, and I was slated to open the conference, Lois suggested that my speech be switched with that of the closing speaker. The agency agreed to try to make such a change with the event sponsors.

  Lisa went back home, and Lois scheduled another dentist appointment for me early Monday morning. But on Sunday she simply left me alone. She and Lisa went house-hunting, looking for a new home for Lisa. Lois didn’t call, she didn’t prepare any meals, she simply left, and stayed that night with Lisa.

  When Lois and Lisa returned on Monday, Lisa gave me a handwritten letter she had penned to me over the weekend. “Please read this,” she asked. In the letter, Lisa expressed her heartfelt support of me, but also her honest concerns. Basically, her letter said, “Buzz, it is your choice; if you don’t want to be involved in this sort of activity, you don’t have to be. If you don’t wish to participate in speaking engagements and other events that give you an opportunity to promote your ideas, we don’t need to pursue this sort of business, and I can go find another job.” Lisa had been a rock musician and a successful entertainment law attorney before coming to work full-time for Lois and me, and had refocused her entire career to help me in all my commercial endeavors. In her own way, Lisa was making it clear that the choice was mine, that nobody was imposing the family business on me. Perhaps just knowing that my independence was not being squelched made my acquiescence to Lisa and Lois a little easier.