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50 free Buzz Aldrin trivia questions with answers — science & nature quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Buzz Aldrin was the seasick cadet who talked a senator into switching his nomination from Annapolis to West Point, shot down two MiGs over Korea, wrote an MIT doctorate on orbital rendezvous and became the first astronaut with a PhD. Nineteen minutes after Neil Armstrong he stepped onto the Moon, took private communion there, and spent the decades since arguing that humans should go to Mars. These 50 questions cover the whole life. The nickname from a sister who said 'buzzer', the Life magazine gun-camera footage, the Gemini 12 spacewalks that finally cracked EVA, why almost every famous Apollo 11 surface photo shows him rather than Armstrong, the 21-day quarantine, the depression and used-car job he wrote about in Return to Earth, the punch thrown at 72, the South Pole at 86 and the fourth wedding at 93. Easy questions stick to Apollo 11 and Buzz Lightyear; the expert tier asks about recovery ships, Psalm 8 and the Aldrin cycler. Every answer is cited to a page we checked.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01What name was he given at birth?
Edwin Eugene Aldrin Jr.
'Buzz' came from his sister mispronouncing 'brother' as 'buzzer'; it became his legal name in 1988.
Q 02How did Aldrin get the nickname 'Buzz'?
His sister mispronounced 'brother' as 'buzzer'
He legally changed his first name to Buzz in 1988.
Q 03In which state was Aldrin born?
New Jersey
He was born in Glen Ridge and his parents lived in neighbouring Montclair.
Q 04What was his mother's maiden name?
Moon
Marion Moon Aldrin was the daughter of an Army chaplain.
Q 05From which academy did Aldrin graduate third in the class of 1951?
West Point
His father had wanted him to go to the Naval Academy, but Aldrin suffered from seasickness.
Q 06Why did Aldrin reject his father's plan for him to attend the Naval Academy?
He suffered from seasickness
He asked Senator Albert Hawkes to switch his nomination to West Point instead.
Q 07How many MiG-15s did Aldrin shoot down in the Korean War?
Two
He flew 66 combat missions in F-86 Sabres and earned two Distinguished Flying Crosses.
Q 08Which magazine printed Aldrin's gun-camera footage of a MiG pilot ejecting in 1953?
Life
The first of his two kills came on May 14, 1953, near the Yalu River.
Q 09Which fighter did Aldrin fly in combat over Korea?
F-86 Sabre
Like most jet pilots of the era he preferred it to the F-80.
Q 10Which future astronaut was Aldrin's squadron colleague at Bitburg Air Base in West Germany?
Ed White
White encouraged him to follow him to graduate school.
Q 11From which university did Aldrin earn his doctorate in astronautics?
MIT
He was the first astronaut to hold a doctoral degree.
Q 12What nickname did fellow astronauts give Aldrin because of his doctoral thesis?
Dr. Rendezvous
The thesis was titled Line-of-Sight Guidance Techniques for Manned Orbital Rendezvous.
Q 13Why was Aldrin's first application to NASA in 1962 rejected?
He was not a test pilot
The 1963 selection accepted 1,000 jet hours instead, and he had 2,200.
Aldrin was one of fourteen chosen in October 1963 for which NASA astronaut intake?
Q 21Who did Deke Slayton offer Armstrong as a replacement for Aldrin on Apollo 11?
Jim Lovell
Armstrong thought it over for a day and declined, saying Lovell deserved his own command.
Q 22How long after Armstrong did Aldrin step onto the Moon?
Nineteen minutes
He stepped off at 03:15:16 UTC on July 21, 1969.
Q 23What were Aldrin's two-word description of the lunar surface, later a book title?
Magnificent desolation
His first words after stepping off were actually 'Beautiful view'.
Group 3
He was one of fourteen chosen.
Q 15Who commanded Gemini 12 alongside Aldrin?
Jim Lovell
Cooper and Cernan were the backup crew.
Q 16What preparation method, new for Gemini 12, helped Aldrin succeed at spacewalking?
Underwater training
Previous spacewalkers had become exhausted; handholds on the capsule went from nine to 44.
Q 17How many spacewalks did Aldrin perform on Gemini 12?
Three
Two were standup EVAs; the free-flight one lasted two hours and six minutes.
Q 18What celestial event did the Gemini 12 crew photograph on November 12, 1966?
A solar eclipse
The Agena's secondary propulsion positioned them to see it over South America.
Q 19Which ship recovered the Gemini 12 crew in the Atlantic?
USS Wasp
The Apollo 11 recovery ship three years later was the Hornet.
Q 20What role did Aldrin hold on Apollo 11?
Lunar Module pilot
Michael Collins stayed in lunar orbit in Columbia while Aldrin and Armstrong flew Eagle.
Q 24What private religious act did Aldrin perform on the Moon?
He took communion
He kept it quiet because of a lawsuit over Apollo 8's Genesis reading.
Q 25Which Bible passage did Aldrin read aloud on the return trip from the Moon?
Psalm 8
He chose it as a more universal text than his private communion on the surface.
Q 26Why are most of the famous Apollo 11 photos of an astronaut on the Moon of Aldrin?
Armstrong usually held the camera
Armstrong appears in only two colour photographs from the surface.
Q 27What did Aldrin claim to be the first person to do before climbing Eagle's ladder?
Urinate on the Moon
He re-entered the lunar module first.
Q 28Which president phoned Armstrong and Aldrin on the lunar surface?
Richard Nixon
Nixon later presented the crew with the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
Q 29How many days of quarantine did the Apollo 11 crew serve after splashdown?
21
Divers passed them biological isolation garments before they left the capsule.
Q 30Which aircraft carrier recovered the Apollo 11 crew?
USS Hornet
Nixon told them on the Moon he would see them aboard it that Thursday.