7245: Buzz Aldrin — The Long, Lonely Descent After Walking on the Moon | pplpod

Buzz Aldrin walked on the moon and came home to a depression so severe he could barely function. The second man on the lunar surface spent years battling alcoholism and a sense that nothing on Earth could match what he had already done. Glory turned out to be a terrible thing to survive.

This episode traces Aldrin from his fighter pilot days in Korea through the Apollo 11 mission, the psychological collapse that followed, and his decades-long campaign to return humanity to space.

  • He was the second human to walk on the moon during the Apollo 11 mission in July 1969
  • He struggled with severe depression and alcoholism after returning from the moon
  • He earned a doctorate from MIT in orbital mechanics before joining NASA
  • He spent decades advocating for a permanent human presence on Mars

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