Buzz Aldrin shares memories of Apollo 11 moon landing on Twitter

Astronaut recalls mission on 46th anniversary of moonwalk

Yahoo News
Buzz Aldrin shares memories of Apollo 11 moon landing on Twitter

Monday marks the 46th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing, and Edwin E. "Buzz" Aldrin — who, along with Neil Armstrong, made mankind's first successful moonwalk on July 20, 1969 — is sharing his memories of the history-making mission on Twitter.


Aldrin, who served as the lunar module pilot on the Apollo 11, tweeted several of the iconic photos Armstrong took of him. Armstrong is visible in the reflection on Aldrin's visor.


The 85-year-old space legend retweeted the New York Times' July 21, 1969, cover.


"Landing was the hard part," Aldrin wrote on Twitter. "Can't walk on the moon if you don't land first."


Over the weekend, Aldrin was joined by actor John Travolta at a gala at the Kennedy Space Center celebrating both the anniversary of the Apollo 11 landing and the launch of Aldrin's ShareSpace Foundation, a charity aimed at addressing science literacy "by igniting children's passion for science, technology, engineering, arts and math."


"Travolta taught me some dance moves," Aldrin tweeted.


Last week, Aldrin was in Houston to mark the anniversary of the Apollo 11 launch and to promote another initiative: his plan to send humans to Mars by 2035.


"I envision a program of settlement that schedules most of the crews who go to Mars will remain and establish a permanent settlement there," Aldrin told the Senate's Subcommittee on Space, Science and Competitiveness earlier this year.

Aldrin has been urging U.S. lawmakers to collaborate with China on the Mars mission.

"I've personally met with Chinese astronauts, and in my conversations with them, it's clear that they have an agenda to use their own space facilities in Earth orbit to explore the Moon with robots and humans, and dispatch spacecraft to Mars," Aldrin wrote in a recent Time magazine op-ed. "It is my conviction that the real objective of cooperation with China should be working together to settle Mars. Both nations, and other countries, need to learn together and sharpen their space skills to advance such a great collaborative adventure."