Buzzing!

In a preceding post marking the sad passing of Neil Armstrong in 2012 I mentioned that I am actually a post moon landing child and that man has not been back to the moon in my lifetime. Yet despite missing this important event I still understood its importance and held a life long interest in those early missions and the brave men that took those first important steps into space. That is why I was thrilled and delighted last weekend to meet a hero. Last Saturday I met Edwin Eugene "Buzz" Aldrin Jr. Lunar Module Pilot on Apollo 11 and the second man to walk on the Moon on that historic July 21 back in 1969. I would list all of Buzz Aldrin’s achievements, awards and honours but I am going to try and keep this post fairly brief but suffice to say meeting him at this years Autographica event in Heathrow was a genuine honour (in fact I told him so). He was over in the UK promoting his new book Welcome to Mars: Making a Home on the Red Planet. He hopes that the book will inspire children to travel to Mars when they grow up underlining his hope that we will have colonised Mars before 2040 (a vision I also share). Before I end up writing another paragraph with ‘hero’ in it I will close it here by paraphrasing that that last weekend I met Buzz Aldrin…hero.

© Arfon Jones 2015. All images are copyrighted throughout the world.