New York – Thanks to video games, TV shows and movies such as “Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith” that are loaded with special effects, today’s children don’t have a realistic impression of space or space travel, says Buzz Aldrin, one of the men who planted the U.S. flag on the moon.
It’s not the kids’ fault, he adds. Those working in the fields of math, science and engineering – the people who were inspired by the accomplishments of Aldrin, Neil Armstrong and others during the space exploration boom of the 1960s and ’70s – haven’t done enough to capture youngsters’ interest.
Aldrin shares his memories of what it took to get humanity on the moon and his impressions once he got there in a new picture book, “Buzz Aldrin: Reaching for the Moon” (HarperCollins). The goal of the book, for 6-to-9-year-olds whom Aldrin calls “the third generation of space explorers,” is to reignite excitement in the space program.
Aldrin, 75, says the best way he can serve his country now is “by offering a vision into the future.” He gets help from illustrator Wendell Minor, whose paintings for “Reaching for the Moon” capture the vastness of space and the potential of what can happen in places where the rest of us can’t see.
Minor, an award-winning artist with an affinity for science and environmental stories, says: “I wanted to give kids people to look up to other than rock ‘n’ rollers and sports stars.”
In illustrating Aldrin’s story, from his boyhood in New Jersey to his salute to the flag in space, Minor noticed certain threads in his subject’s life:
Aldrin’s mother’s maiden name was Moon.
The first plane he ever flew in belonged to Standard Oil and was covered with a painting of an eagle. The name of the craft that Aldrin and Armstrong used to break away from the Apollo 11 rocket and land on the moon was Eagle.
As a child, Aldrin enjoyed diving and collecting rocks. As an adult, Aldrin trained for his space missions by simulating weightlessness underwater, and one of his primary tasks on the Apollo mission was to collect moon rocks.
Aldrin – who got the nickname “Buzz” because, as a child, his sister called him “Buzzer” instead of “brother” – dreamed of a career in the air when he was in high school and his father flew for the military in World War II.
That’s when he began to focus on his schoolwork so he could earn a spot at West Point. Aldrin also enjoyed sports, both on teams and when he was competing as an individual in pole-vaulting. All of those athletic experiences helped him as an astronaut, he says.
He joined the Air Force and flew combat missions in the Korean War, then went to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to earn a doctoral degree in aeronautics. From there, he went into the NASA space program.
His first spaceflight was aboard Gemini 12 in 1966, during which he took three spacewalks. Even more historic was the 1969 moonwalk with Armstrong.
Aldrin and his colleagues became heroes to children raised on Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon, who, despite being fictional, lived in a version of outer space earthlings could relate to.
Kids raised in this high-tech age, Aldrin says, seem more interested in going to space in a virtual-reality game than in reality. And if they ever made it to the cosmos, they would expect nonstop action and one-eyed creatures.
“Unfortunately, kids are led to believe things are easier to achieve than they really are. … They want instant gratification; they’re not waiting for the bigger and better prize,” Aldrin says.
