Buzz Aldrin’s Five Favorite Places to Space Out on Earth

22 May Buzz Aldrin’s Five Favorite Places to Space Out on Earth

When hundreds of millions of kids across the world woke up on July 22, 1969 and claimed they wanted to be an astronaut, they were likely talking about this guy. Buzz Aldrin. American astronaut. Retired colonel of the U.S. Air Force. Korean War veteran and fighter pilot of 66 missions. And of course, the guy who followed Neil Armstrong out of Apollo 11 on July 21, 1969 — when they became the first two men ever to set foot on the moon.

Buzz Aldrin has seen a lot in his 84 years. He’s also landed in a lot of impressive places. As we come up on the 45th anniversary of Aldrin’s historic moonwalk, Aldrin took the time to share with us his five favorite places to explore… when he’s not orbiting through space.

California Science Center – Los Angeles, CA – “Here in Los Angeles, we had a lot of pictures first of the 747 flying over with Endeavour. We felt pretty good ’cause we got one of the shuttles and Houston didn’t. Well, they put it on display in the California Science Center. That’s meaningful to me because I was inducted into the California Hall of Fame (after the New Jersey Hall of Fame). Before movin’ on, I may see fit to put a portion of my artifacts on display in California. There’s one artifact that I was given by NASA — a piece of the moon provided that I put it in a museum and have a fundraiser for it.”

Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum – Washington, D.C. – “The most intense collection with tours in Washington, D.C. Not just the classic one downtown, but the one by the airport. There’s a lot more room out there. Those are well-traveled pieces.”

San Diego Air and Space Museum – San Diego, CA – “Down in San Diego, they’ve got a very interesting place. It’s really a rendition of the history of a lot of things with a Believe It or Not by Robert Ripley thrown in. Maybe a little bit of an overemphasis on Navy planes rather than the Air Force.”

Kansas Cosmosphere & Space Center – Hutchinson, KS – “Out in the boondocks in the middle of the country in Kansas, there’s a Cosmosphere. I was there just recently. On display are the water soaked rocket engines of the Saturn V that were brought up by Jeff Bezos and a team from Amazon. Of course, they were looking for it. The engine that they got is the center engine (Saturn V had five engines).”
The Museum of Flight – Seattle, WA – “Up in Seattle there’s The Museum of Flight (pictured below). All the planes are flying in the same direction for some reason but it’s really a wonderful display of flying aircraft because Boeing is very close.”

With the 45th anniversary of Buzz Aldrin’s historic moon landing coming in July 2014, Aldrin’s decided to launch a You Tube project asking people to record where they were during his monumental moonwalk. More details TBD.

Where’s Buzz now? Follow him on Twitter @TheRealBuzz to find out.