“We weren’t trained to smell the roses or to utter life-changing aphorisms,” admits Buzz Aldrin, the second man on the moon. “That’s why for years I have wanted Nasa to fly a poet, a singer or a journalist into space — someone who could capture the emotions of the experience and share them with the world.”

By the end of Magnificent Desolation, you wish that Nasa had sent anyone (an accountant, an estate agent, anyone) to the moon, rather than Aldrin. In this undignified, self-serving memoir (as the astronaut recalls his decline from moon-walker to alcoholic car dealer to Ali G’s dupe in Ali G in da USA) life-changing aphorisms are outnumbered 50-to-one by peppy exclamation marks. The only small mercy is that last month’s excruciating rapping episode with Snoop Dogg occurred too recently to appear in the book.

Aldrin’s account of the Apollo 11 lunar mission has no choice but to be thrilling. Forty years on, the raw facts of the adventure remain beguiling and the bravery of the astronauts compelling. Indeed, the gossamer thread that separated Armstrong and Aldrin’s victorious touchdown and the mission’s failure is laid out in bare terms. The astronauts reached the moon with only 20 ­seconds’ worth of fuel remaining.

Again, you might wish they’d sent someone else, particularly when Aldrin punctures the majesty of the Eagle’s touchdown with such folksy reminiscences as “landing on the moon is not quite the same thing as arriving at Grandmother’s for Thanksgiving”. Our understanding of the Apollo missions might not have been damaged, either, if Aldrin’s anecdote about being the first astronaut “to relieve the ­nervousness in his bladder” while on the moon had been omitted.

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BACKGROUND

• DIY on the Moon: how Buzz saved the launch back to Earth

• Moon rock of ages

• Apollo Gadgets: Can you guess what they were for?

• The Moon: Gods, myths and legends

Related Internet Links

• Moon landing 40th anniversary special supplement

• The 21 best space toys

Related Internet Links

• Buy the book here

From space, it’s downhill all the way. Buzz returns to earth with his fellow astronauts, Neil Armstrong and Mike Collins, as a celebrity. He tours the world, meets kings and presidents, and starts drinking with abandon. Without another mission to accomplish, he is bereft.

When he visits psychiatrists, they begin to probe the cause of his depression. His status as “the second man on the moon” features strongly. His “overbearing tyrant” father and his suicidal mother (her maiden name was Moon) also play a part. Indeed, we learn in an aside (that seems worthy of more attention than the glancing blow it is afforded here) that Marion killed herself in part because of the pressure of her son’s achievement as an astronaut.

In fact, in the page or so ­dedicated to his most deep-rooted psychological fears, we discover that not only did his mother commit suicide, but his grandfather “and several close relatives in our family” also chose to end their lives. This inherited trait seems too important to be ignored, but the closing words of the passage — “the doctor promised to delve into my concerns” — are Aldrin’s last on the matter.

Aldrin’s psychology, however, is just one of a number of potentially interesting avenues that he and his co-writer fail to develop. Why, for instance, do we learn so little about the astronaut’s early life? The Apollo 11 mission was launched when Aldrin was 39 years old, and we are taken on a rocket-propelled ride from the lunar landscape to depression to alcoholism to his third wife, Lois (“Every Superman Needs His Lois!”), to his advocacy for space tourism and his experiments in writing science fiction, with barely a look over his shoulder.

Indeed, in his critically under-examined science fantasy, Encounter with Tiber, Aldrin’s hobbyhorses overwhelm his characters. “If you want that better world,” says Sig Jarlsbourg, “we need to see space tourism take off right away, and it can’t be as a plaything of a tiny group of super-rich people. It’s got to have broad-based public support and enthusiasm right from the start.”

Just occasionally, a tantalising titbit from Aldrin’s pre-Apollo life is mentioned — his years as a fighter pilot in Korea, for instance — only to be snatched away before it can become too interesting. His description of two “kills” made on Russian fighter pilots is vivid, and yet we discover nothing about how this period in his life affected him, only that he drank a little more than he should have done.

Magnificent Desolation’s failure to dig is infuriating. For instance, it may seem irrelevant to him now, but I’d like to know: where did the nickname “Buzz” come from? (I discovered, after reading the book, that his sister mispronounced “brother” as “buzzer”, which was then shortened to “Buzz”.)

Moreover, what exactly were the politics behind his being the second man on the moon? Aldrin was accused of lobbying support within Nasa to be the first astronaut to exit the lunar module, although he insists here that he “didn’t really want to be… I knew the media would never let that person alone”. So, was it ­simply the case that “it was preferable for the left crewman to exit first”, or did Armstrong put his foot down?

Instead, Aldrin would rather tell us about the time Ali G interviewed him and how “I caught on rather quickly and had a great time with him, playing him straight.” You may wish to check YouTube to discover just how quickly Aldrin caught on.

Meanwhile, in another makeweight chapter, grandiosely entitled The Blow Heard Around the World, the ageing astronaut recounts how he once hit a ­television reporter who asked him whether the moon landings were faked. “WHAAP! I belted the guy squarely in the jaw,” remembers Aldrin, although “it was doubtful that my septuagenarian punch did much to damage the fellow.”

But Aldrin is no mere beefcake. He’s sensitive, too, as he displays in this devastating deployment of bathos. “On January 20, 1989, my 59th birthday, Lois and I went to Washington, DC to attend the ­inauguration of President George HW Bush,” he recalls. “While we were there, Lois’s mother passed away, which was a blow to Lois.”

For those still fascinated by the moon landings, Magnificent Desolation will prove a barren landscape. But for anyone seeking pure Buzz-on-Buzz action, it is indispensable. “Over the years, I’ve been able to fill in a good many of the craters in my life,” reflects Aldrin. “I was an ace fighter pilot in the Korean war, earned a doctorate from MIT, and, oh yes, I was the second man in the history of the human species to set foot on a celestial body other than earth. I feel that I’ve been able to accomplish quite a bit in my short time on this planet, and I’m not done yet!” Pleased with himself? Not much!

Magnificent Desolation by Buzz Aldrin with Ken Abraham
Bloomsbury £16.99 pp326

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