- Aldrin, Buzz.
Magnificent Desolation.
London: Bloomsbury, 2009.
ISBN 978-1-4088-0416-2.
-
What do you do with the rest of your life when you were one of
the first two humans to land on the Moon before you celebrated your
fortieth birthday? This relentlessly candid autobiography answers
that question for Buzz Aldrin (please don't write to chastise me
for misstating his name: while born as Edwin Eugene Aldrin, Jr., he
legally changed his name to Buzz Aldrin in 1979). Life after the Moon
was not easy for Aldrin. While NASA trained their astronauts for
every imaginable in-flight contingency, they prepared them in no way for
their celebrity after the mission was accomplished, and detail-oriented
engineers were suddenly thrust into the public sphere, sent as goodwill
ambassadors around the world with little or no concern for the effects
upon their careers or family lives.
All of this was not easy for Aldrin, and in this book he chronicles
his marriages (3), divorces (2), battles against depression and
alcoholism, search for a post-Apollo career, which included commanding
the U.S. Air Force test pilot school at Edwards Air Force Base, writing
novels, serving as a corporate board member, and selling Cadillacs.
In the latter part of the book he describes his recent efforts to promote
space tourism, develop affordable private sector access to space, and
design an architecture which will permit exploration and exploitation
of the resources of the Moon, Mars and beyond with budgets well
below those of the Apollo era.
This book did not work for me. Buzz Aldrin has lived an extraordinary
life: he developed the techniques for orbital rendezvous used to this
day in space missions, pioneered underwater neutral buoyancy training
for spacewalks then performed the first completely successful
extra-vehicular activity on
Gemini 12,
demonstrating that astronauts can do useful work in the void, and was the
second man to set foot on the Moon. But all of this is completely
covered in the first three chapters, and then we have 19 more chapters
describing his life after the Moon. While I'm sure it's fascinating if
you've lived though it yourself, it isn't necessarily all that interesting to other
people. Aldrin comes across as, and admits to being, self-centred, and this is much
in evidence here. His adventures, ups, downs, triumphs, and disappointments in
the post-Apollo era are those that many experience in their own lives, and I don't
find them compelling to read just because the author landed on the Moon forty
years ago.
Buzz Aldrin is not just an American hero, but a hero of the human species:
he was there when the first naked apes reached out and set foot
upon another celestial body
(hear what he heard
in his headphones during the landing). His life after that epochal event has
been a life well-lived, and his efforts to open the high frontier to ordinary
citizens are to be commended. This book is his recapitulation of his life so far, but
I must confess I found the post-Apollo narrative tedious. But then, they wouldn't
call him Buzz if there wasn't a buzz there! Buzz is 80 years old and envisions
living another 20 or so. Works for me: I'm around 60, so that gives me 40 or
so to work with. Given any remotely sane space policy, Buzz could be the first
man to set foot on Mars in the next 15 years, and Lois could be the first
woman. Maybe I and the love of my life will be among the crew to deliver them
their supplies and the essential weasels for their planetary colonisation project.
A U.S. edition is available.
January 2011 