Buzz Aldrin still
oozes the right stuff. Few are blessed with the brains to
earn a doctorate in astronautics from MIT and the balls to
smoke two MIG-15s in air combat, let alone be the second human
to set foot on the moon. But behind those pilot's steely eyes
lurks the soul of a poet,
a man who loves
telling fifth graders that the "moon is no longer a stranger
to me." Since the historic Apollo 11 landing, Aldrin has
dabbled with science fiction, venture capitalism and commanding
NASA's Test Pilot School, but he still found time to swing
by Portland to launch OMSI's new Imagine Space exhibition,
which runs through Sept. 6.
Willamette Week: What's the food like in space?
Buzz Aldrin: It's not as important as it is here. You don't
get as hungry in space, but you do need to consume enough
calories to keep the muscles from wasting away. The food
is difficult to eat. In the early days we had to put water
into the food bags and then massage it, knead it and squeeze
it out through a tube.
Did you ever play with your food?
Well, it's going to go around the cabin if you start playing
with it too much. It would get pretty messy in there.
Are you more of a Spock or Kirk kind of guy?
My ears are a little rounder than Spock's, and I'm not
quite as paunchy as Kirk is these days. He's put on a little
weight. But I gotta tell you, I've been skiing against him,
and he's a Canadian. He's a good skier.
What do you do for fun in the summertime?
I find a nice, fascinating place and go scuba diving if
I can. Last summer I went to the North Pole on a Russian
nuclear ice-breaker. And two summers before that I went
very deep in the ocean. I went down to see the Titanic.
Neat.
I think this summer I'll be busy talking to people because
it's the 30th anniversary [of the Apollo 11 moon landing].
My wife and I like to go on cruise ships. We're probably
going to do that several times this summer. There also happens
to be an eclipse of the sun on Aug. 11. So we're going to
participate in that. And then, of course, later on in the
year there's a millennium.
What are your plans for the millennium?
We decided to go on a millennium cruise between Tahiti
and Fiji.
What did you think of The Right Stuff by Tom
Wolfe?
The book was quite accurate, but it was all jammed together.
The movie was irresponsible in many places because it stretched
things way out of reasonable proportion. It just went beyond
credibility in many cases.
Have you caught the new Star Wars yet?
Not yet. But you know what I think they ought to do?
What?
I think people that put out films like that--that have
to do with space and have to do with new and unusual things--they
ought to be required to show them in a place like this [OMSI]
so that they would bring people here. So at the same time
they came to see the movie, they would see some real-world
stuff, too.
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Willamette Week | originally
published July 7, 1999
|
