July 9, 2025 • 18 mins
Buzz Aldrin is a hero in public — but the cracks are showing. As NASA polishes its image, private truths threaten to shatter it all.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Buzz an audio drama for iHeart Podcasts starring John Lithgow
and Jeffrey Errand as buzz Aldrin. This series is based
on real events. However, certain characters, names, incidents, locations, and
dialogue have been fictionalized for dramatic purposes. Chapter three, I've
(00:22):
been married four times.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
The triumph of hope over experience. It's an old joke,
but I'm an old man. If you're one ring where
that optimism comes from. When you're facing an immovable deadline
to get to the moon and the technology's undependable at best,
hope is all you have. Several of the projections.
Speaker 3 (00:51):
If we lose pressure in the tunnels between the command
and lunar modules during redocking, we risk a catastrophic explosion.
We may need to get Rockwell's design team to reconceptualize
the entire ringlatch mechanism.
Speaker 4 (01:03):
That all mean we'll still be doing calculations when the
Russians send up their next mission.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
Chris Kraft, former director of the Manned Spacecraft Center, never
took his eyes off the prize.
Speaker 5 (01:16):
Well, then, Chris, that's what we'll be doing. We'll go
when we're ready, And not a minute before I lost
one crew. I'm not about to have it happen again.
Speaker 2 (01:25):
For flight director Gene Krantz, Apollo eleven was a mission
fueled by equal parts liquid nitrogen and guilt. More on
that later.
Speaker 5 (01:35):
There are three men in this room whose lives depend
on the ring latch mechanism working to maximum efficiency.
Speaker 6 (01:42):
Neil, I think we go even if it's a fifty
to fifty.
Speaker 4 (01:48):
Chance, buzz, I'll risk it at twenty percent.
Speaker 7 (01:52):
Would you get into a jet with those odds I have?
Speaker 4 (01:55):
That's the business we're in, Mike.
Speaker 7 (01:58):
The business we're in is doing the job and coming
back alive in that order of priority. Maybe for you,
but as far as I'm concerned, this isn't about swinging
decks or five beta kapakes. I'm a general son. He
taught me the difference between acceptable risk and suicide. So
if it comes down to a choice between a mission
that pushes risk beyond what's acceptable and seeing my kids
(02:21):
grow up, I'm staying on the ground.
Speaker 2 (02:25):
I remember wondering what kind of pilot thinks like that.
It took seeing my own kids grow up for me
to realize what kind of father doesn't. And if failing
technology and dissension among the crew wasn't problematic enough. What
we feared most suddenly became a reality.
Speaker 8 (02:46):
In France.
Speaker 9 (02:47):
Let's check that out, sir. We intercepted a Soviet radio transmission.
We launched a zond and one on a lunar trajectory.
Speaker 5 (02:55):
Jesus Christ, can you put it through?
Speaker 9 (02:59):
Did you translate one hundred and eighty seconds and a
fight of the zond and one down range sixty five
kilometers alther tuode five zero sixteen.
Speaker 3 (03:10):
Seventeen based on a free return trajectory, they'll reach lunar
orbit in seventy two.
Speaker 4 (03:16):
Hours and we won't have launched, and there goes your
place in history.
Speaker 6 (03:22):
Jesus, buzz. If that's what you think this is about.
Speaker 5 (03:24):
Knock it off, all of you, Dmitri.
Speaker 9 (03:27):
We're only hearing Russian ground control no voices from inside
the spacecraft. Pro We know the zond could be unmapped.
Speaker 7 (03:35):
No, there's a crew on board three possibly four.
Speaker 4 (03:40):
CIA says they're flying with a live escape tarer.
Speaker 9 (03:43):
The Russians haven't done a successful Earth orbit.
Speaker 5 (03:46):
They don't give a damn about testing.
Speaker 2 (03:48):
It's about landing men on the Moon before we do.
Speaker 8 (03:51):
What do I tell the press?
Speaker 2 (03:54):
Nothing?
Speaker 3 (03:56):
I have to give him some kind of information.
Speaker 5 (03:58):
Damn it, Brian, I'm talking a complete muse blackout.
Speaker 7 (04:01):
Okay.
Speaker 5 (04:02):
I don't want our people to think that Russians have
beaten us unless there's absolute proof that that's the case.
Speaker 3 (04:06):
Undt.
Speaker 5 (04:07):
Meanwhile, we proceed back to work. At least the question
of replacing Buzz becomes moot.
Speaker 9 (04:20):
Is it?
Speaker 5 (04:20):
Facts are facts, Chris. If the Russians get there first,
they get there.
Speaker 2 (04:26):
There was a picture on the wall in Gene Krantz's
office Gus Grissom, Ed White and Roger Chaffey, the crew of.
Speaker 10 (04:35):
Apollo one bishop control off.
Speaker 2 (04:40):
They died in a flash fire on the launch path.
Jeane was flight director. I never saw Jeane cry until
that day, and I hadn't seen it since.
Speaker 5 (04:55):
All we can do is make sure Apollo eleven's the
best and safest mission it can be. Doctor Ludwig raised
doubts about Buzz's ability to work with Neil and Mike,
and the disaster of his life is likely to be
after the.
Speaker 4 (05:07):
Mission to work together, because they're professionals, His life afterward.
Speaker 7 (05:11):
Is none of our concern.
Speaker 11 (05:12):
If this was a system's defect, we'd replace it. I
still have nightmares about gus Ed and Roger. I can
still hear them screaming, Apollo. I was an accident we
couldn't prevent.
Speaker 2 (05:34):
Meanwhile, I was having nightmares of my own, nightmares I
couldn't shake. If Ludwig had known about them, she wouldn't
have had me ground it, she'd have had me committed.
I'm Buzz Aldrin, and this is the story you think
(05:56):
you know, but you don't.
Speaker 10 (06:00):
Infrequent five five four, perfect quality Beavior, the angle l
one arapermand part.
Speaker 2 (06:29):
You're listening to, Buzz. This is the story of my
greatest achievement. Chapter three.
Speaker 9 (06:45):
Uh, the Soviets Sunden one is downrange forty eight hundred.
Speaker 2 (06:50):
The Soviets were on their way to the Moon, leaving
us in their backwash, or so we.
Speaker 9 (06:56):
Thought altitude approaching one hundred and thirty a mile.
Speaker 2 (07:00):
Their launch surprised us. Oh what happened, But not as
much as their radio transmission going silent less than twenty
minutes into its flight.
Speaker 9 (07:10):
They may have changed frequency.
Speaker 5 (07:12):
Could be a satellite malfunction.
Speaker 6 (07:14):
No, sir, it's not.
Speaker 3 (07:16):
The satellite canyon's still transmitting.
Speaker 6 (07:18):
What about the relay stations in Guam and Perth, both active.
Speaker 3 (07:22):
So's Jodrell Bank in the UK and Punta de l
Este in Uruguay.
Speaker 2 (07:26):
Did we trust the Russians? In a word, niet.
Speaker 5 (07:31):
They could have cut the transmission themselves, so we're in
the dark until they plant their flag.
Speaker 6 (07:37):
Or kept their flight path undetected while they track hours
so they could destroy Apollo eleven as it approaches the
moon or after it lands.
Speaker 4 (07:46):
I'll call Barkley at cia in teed O'Rourke at the Pentagon.
Speaker 5 (07:50):
Dieck set up a whiteboard track the Russians progress based
on presumed speed and trajectory.
Speaker 6 (07:55):
Gotcha, what do you say?
Speaker 8 (08:02):
Both?
Speaker 3 (08:02):
Another beer?
Speaker 12 (08:03):
Why not?
Speaker 4 (08:04):
The night is young?
Speaker 3 (08:06):
Anything for an American hero much obliged path.
Speaker 2 (08:25):
The night was geriatric. By the time I got home,
Joan was asleep on the couch, an empty bottle on
the floor. When I first met her, she didn't touch
the stuff. I chalked it up to a theatrical career
that never took off. I mean, it couldn't have been
my fault, not in a million years. At the same time,
(08:53):
across town, Rachel Ludwig was digging up more dirt on me.
Speaker 12 (09:00):
Aldrin Junior Edwin Eugene MMP evaluation administered by doctor Paul McCone,
January twenty eighth, nineteen sixty three.
Speaker 9 (09:10):
Okay, in your family history, Colonel, other indications of mental illness, depression,
drug or alcohol abuse.
Speaker 4 (09:19):
Categorically no, My parents are as solid as a rock.
Speaker 11 (09:25):
Your grandparents same.
Speaker 6 (09:30):
On both sides.
Speaker 2 (09:31):
Yes, good?
Speaker 9 (09:34):
Did you know your grandparents?
Speaker 4 (09:37):
My mother's father died before I was born.
Speaker 2 (09:43):
What was the cause of his death?
Speaker 4 (09:55):
Natural? As far as I know.
Speaker 2 (09:58):
I knew further, but I wasn't about to let the
end of his life be the ruination of mine.
Speaker 11 (10:14):
Shipped off from Charleston, South Carolina.
Speaker 12 (10:19):
Yea, Rachel Ludwig Slayton.
Speaker 8 (10:24):
What can I do for you?
Speaker 11 (10:25):
Dike?
Speaker 6 (10:26):
You can go to the window and open the drapes
and look out to the parking lot.
Speaker 8 (10:33):
Yeah, I see you in the phone.
Speaker 6 (10:35):
Booth the l Paradise Motel. The R and the S
are burned out. Is this the best accommodation NASCA come
up with?
Speaker 8 (10:51):
I like the anonymity.
Speaker 6 (10:55):
I thought we'd have heard from you after you saw.
Speaker 8 (10:57):
A Buzz It didn't go well.
Speaker 6 (11:01):
I've got a final simulation today, docking procedure. Buzz wrote
the book on it. That's what put him on the
crew in the first place.
Speaker 12 (11:09):
I'm not changing my recommendation. You and mister Krans can
pressure me all you want, but Colonel Aldren should not
be a part of Apollo eleven, no matter what happens
in the simulation.
Speaker 6 (11:18):
I agree, So does Gene Krantz more or less.
Speaker 12 (11:23):
Really, but Craft doesn't. Is that because he loves Oldren
or he hates me?
Speaker 6 (11:33):
Yes? And because he sees everything he's ever worked for
slipping away. It's killing him?
Speaker 12 (11:41):
Rachel, How do I get him to see that replacing
Colonel Aldren is the best thing for the mission and
for the colonel himself.
Speaker 6 (11:50):
It'll take more than seven year old memos and evaluations.
It would take something current and irrefutable.
Speaker 2 (12:09):
Back at the Aldron house, Joan and I were getting dressed.
It was feeding time, not for Popo the chimp, but
for the vultures from the press.
Speaker 8 (12:19):
Mm hmm, how's your head centered on my shoulders? Why?
Speaker 1 (12:25):
Uh?
Speaker 4 (12:26):
You knocked back the best part of a bottle last
night while.
Speaker 8 (12:29):
You wererapping the All American boy?
Speaker 4 (12:33):
I think you just ought to slow down.
Speaker 8 (12:36):
Popo doesn't mind.
Speaker 2 (12:40):
Are you ready?
Speaker 8 (12:42):
Let's do this hurdle question?
Speaker 5 (12:54):
Are you?
Speaker 6 (12:54):
Are you holding up?
Speaker 9 (12:55):
Okay?
Speaker 1 (12:57):
I think all the wives are happy through old and
so proud.
Speaker 4 (13:01):
Believe me, they're a lot stronger than we are without
them holding down the four.
Speaker 3 (13:08):
In dramatic arts from Rutgers. Did you have aspirations of
a career on Broadway or in Hollywood?
Speaker 8 (13:13):
My role here is well more fulfilling than anything.
Speaker 4 (13:18):
I'd like to amplify my response on orbital docking procedures.
It was the subject.
Speaker 2 (13:23):
Of my doctorate.
Speaker 4 (13:24):
The increase in velocity of the chaser craft carries it
to a higher orbit than the target. Docking occurs at
a rate of point one feet per second to point two.
Speaker 5 (13:34):
Thank you, Colonel Aldron.
Speaker 6 (13:36):
Thanks fellas, question later fell.
Speaker 8 (13:42):
No more questions.
Speaker 4 (13:43):
Thank you, see you, honey.
Speaker 6 (13:50):
Don't you ever cut me off?
Speaker 2 (13:54):
You understand me?
Speaker 7 (13:55):
Ever, I swear to God.
Speaker 6 (13:58):
Duff you were losing them.
Speaker 4 (14:03):
No one gives a goddamn about Joan's theatrical career.
Speaker 6 (14:07):
As a matter of fact, they do. I'll never understand
orbital rendezvous, but they.
Speaker 8 (14:12):
Want to connect with you as if you're a typical
American family. That's what we're selling.
Speaker 4 (14:18):
Maybe that's what it's about for you. But I'm an
engineer and a pilot, not a salesman.
Speaker 2 (14:24):
Duff was always spouting off about us being a typical
American family. But we weren't, so why should we Why
should I have to pretend we were. We weren't just
a husband and wife. We were a team. Joan supported me,
and I let her to me. It was about integrity.
(14:46):
I thought I had it, and NASA didn't. Another on
my list of attributes. I was pretentious as hell. Little
did I know my bigger problem had been watching us
from down the block, waiting for me to leave.
Speaker 12 (15:06):
Yes, missus Aldrin, I'm Rachel Ludwig, flight surgeon for Apollo eleven.
Speaker 8 (15:20):
Yeah, I know who you are. Come in, Thank you,
thanks right through here.
Speaker 10 (15:28):
Thanks?
Speaker 12 (15:29):
Oh well, having a chimp for a pet.
Speaker 8 (15:35):
It's it's that's most people's reaction. Buzz bought, I'm back
from Panama last year for Christmas. Isn't the right popo?
And now you're part of the family.
Speaker 12 (15:54):
From what I've seen you do well with the press.
I was a theater major, happy, thrilled, proud, it's an act.
Saying it for the thousand time and making it sound
like it's the first that's an act.
Speaker 8 (16:10):
Have a seat.
Speaker 12 (16:15):
I would have thought Colonel Aldren would have told you
not to see me in light of my recommendation that
he'd be replaced as a member of the crew.
Speaker 8 (16:23):
My husband is one of the strongest men I've ever met.
Speaker 12 (16:27):
You know, I'm also a psychiatrist.
Speaker 8 (16:29):
And the strongest physically and emotionally.
Speaker 5 (16:34):
Well.
Speaker 12 (16:35):
Questions have been raised as to whether he's capable of
being lunar module pilot and if he can maintain an
emotionally stable life.
Speaker 8 (16:44):
After the mission.
Speaker 12 (16:45):
Questions raised by you based on existing data.
Speaker 8 (16:50):
You know him better than anyone. Are there any insights
that you could get. He's confident, competent.
Speaker 12 (16:57):
His family history indicates a strong predisposition to depression, alcohol abuse,
and suicide.
Speaker 8 (17:06):
Every family has a history.
Speaker 12 (17:08):
Missus Aldren, I know you want what's best for your
husband and your family, and.
Speaker 8 (17:12):
What's best for him is to go to the moon.
How can you question that?
Speaker 12 (17:16):
If confidence and competence were.
Speaker 8 (17:17):
All there, that is all that matters. There are two
buzz aldrons.
Speaker 12 (17:23):
One of them has all the qualities you've mentioned, but
the other is critically damaged.
Speaker 8 (17:29):
I think you know that. I think you should go.
Speaker 12 (17:37):
Not flying would hurt the astronaut, but it might just
save the man.
Speaker 8 (17:43):
You're out to destroy him. And I Won't help You
Get out of My House.
Speaker 13 (17:50):
Out Buzz, starring John Lithgow and Jeffrey Errand, is created
(18:11):
by Stephen Cronish and directed by John Scott Dryden.
Speaker 8 (18:15):
Chapter three is written by Stephen.
Speaker 1 (18:17):
Kronish and Matt Graham. Original music is by Sasha Putnam.
Sound designed by Elouise Whitmore. The producer is Emma Hearn.
The executive producers are Jeremy Fox, John Scott Dryden, Stephen Cronish,
Howard Stringer and Jason English. Buzz is a production of
Thoroughbred Studios, gold Hawk Productions and iHeart Podcasts.
Buzz an audio drama for iHeart Podcasts starring John Lithgow
and Jeffrey Errand as buzz Aldrin. This series is based
on real events. However, certain characters, names, incidents, locations, and
dialogue have been fictionalized for dramatic purposes. Chapter three, I've
(00:22):
been married four times.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
The triumph of hope over experience. It's an old joke,
but I'm an old man. If you're one ring where
that optimism comes from. When you're facing an immovable deadline
to get to the moon and the technology's undependable at best,
hope is all you have. Several of the projections.
Speaker 3 (00:51):
If we lose pressure in the tunnels between the command
and lunar modules during redocking, we risk a catastrophic explosion.
We may need to get Rockwell's design team to reconceptualize
the entire ringlatch mechanism.
Speaker 4 (01:03):
That all mean we'll still be doing calculations when the
Russians send up their next mission.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
Chris Kraft, former director of the Manned Spacecraft Center, never
took his eyes off the prize.
Speaker 5 (01:16):
Well, then, Chris, that's what we'll be doing. We'll go
when we're ready, And not a minute before I lost
one crew. I'm not about to have it happen again.
Speaker 2 (01:25):
For flight director Gene Krantz, Apollo eleven was a mission
fueled by equal parts liquid nitrogen and guilt. More on
that later.
Speaker 5 (01:35):
There are three men in this room whose lives depend
on the ring latch mechanism working to maximum efficiency.
Speaker 6 (01:42):
Neil, I think we go even if it's a fifty
to fifty.
Speaker 4 (01:48):
Chance, buzz, I'll risk it at twenty percent.
Speaker 7 (01:52):
Would you get into a jet with those odds I have?
Speaker 4 (01:55):
That's the business we're in, Mike.
Speaker 7 (01:58):
The business we're in is doing the job and coming
back alive in that order of priority. Maybe for you,
but as far as I'm concerned, this isn't about swinging
decks or five beta kapakes. I'm a general son. He
taught me the difference between acceptable risk and suicide. So
if it comes down to a choice between a mission
that pushes risk beyond what's acceptable and seeing my kids
(02:21):
grow up, I'm staying on the ground.
Speaker 2 (02:25):
I remember wondering what kind of pilot thinks like that.
It took seeing my own kids grow up for me
to realize what kind of father doesn't. And if failing
technology and dissension among the crew wasn't problematic enough. What
we feared most suddenly became a reality.
Speaker 8 (02:46):
In France.
Speaker 9 (02:47):
Let's check that out, sir. We intercepted a Soviet radio transmission.
We launched a zond and one on a lunar trajectory.
Speaker 5 (02:55):
Jesus Christ, can you put it through?
Speaker 9 (02:59):
Did you translate one hundred and eighty seconds and a
fight of the zond and one down range sixty five
kilometers alther tuode five zero sixteen.
Speaker 3 (03:10):
Seventeen based on a free return trajectory, they'll reach lunar
orbit in seventy two.
Speaker 4 (03:16):
Hours and we won't have launched, and there goes your
place in history.
Speaker 6 (03:22):
Jesus, buzz. If that's what you think this is about.
Speaker 5 (03:24):
Knock it off, all of you, Dmitri.
Speaker 9 (03:27):
We're only hearing Russian ground control no voices from inside
the spacecraft. Pro We know the zond could be unmapped.
Speaker 7 (03:35):
No, there's a crew on board three possibly four.
Speaker 4 (03:40):
CIA says they're flying with a live escape tarer.
Speaker 9 (03:43):
The Russians haven't done a successful Earth orbit.
Speaker 5 (03:46):
They don't give a damn about testing.
Speaker 2 (03:48):
It's about landing men on the Moon before we do.
Speaker 8 (03:51):
What do I tell the press?
Speaker 2 (03:54):
Nothing?
Speaker 3 (03:56):
I have to give him some kind of information.
Speaker 5 (03:58):
Damn it, Brian, I'm talking a complete muse blackout.
Speaker 7 (04:01):
Okay.
Speaker 5 (04:02):
I don't want our people to think that Russians have
beaten us unless there's absolute proof that that's the case.
Speaker 3 (04:06):
Undt.
Speaker 5 (04:07):
Meanwhile, we proceed back to work. At least the question
of replacing Buzz becomes moot.
Speaker 9 (04:20):
Is it?
Speaker 5 (04:20):
Facts are facts, Chris. If the Russians get there first,
they get there.
Speaker 2 (04:26):
There was a picture on the wall in Gene Krantz's
office Gus Grissom, Ed White and Roger Chaffey, the crew of.
Speaker 10 (04:35):
Apollo one bishop control off.
Speaker 2 (04:40):
They died in a flash fire on the launch path.
Jeane was flight director. I never saw Jeane cry until
that day, and I hadn't seen it since.
Speaker 5 (04:55):
All we can do is make sure Apollo eleven's the
best and safest mission it can be. Doctor Ludwig raised
doubts about Buzz's ability to work with Neil and Mike,
and the disaster of his life is likely to be
after the.
Speaker 4 (05:07):
Mission to work together, because they're professionals, His life afterward.
Speaker 7 (05:11):
Is none of our concern.
Speaker 11 (05:12):
If this was a system's defect, we'd replace it. I
still have nightmares about gus Ed and Roger. I can
still hear them screaming, Apollo. I was an accident we
couldn't prevent.
Speaker 2 (05:34):
Meanwhile, I was having nightmares of my own, nightmares I
couldn't shake. If Ludwig had known about them, she wouldn't
have had me ground it, she'd have had me committed.
I'm Buzz Aldrin, and this is the story you think
(05:56):
you know, but you don't.
Speaker 10 (06:00):
Infrequent five five four, perfect quality Beavior, the angle l
one arapermand part.
Speaker 2 (06:29):
You're listening to, Buzz. This is the story of my
greatest achievement. Chapter three.
Speaker 9 (06:45):
Uh, the Soviets Sunden one is downrange forty eight hundred.
Speaker 2 (06:50):
The Soviets were on their way to the Moon, leaving
us in their backwash, or so we.
Speaker 9 (06:56):
Thought altitude approaching one hundred and thirty a mile.
Speaker 2 (07:00):
Their launch surprised us. Oh what happened, But not as
much as their radio transmission going silent less than twenty
minutes into its flight.
Speaker 9 (07:10):
They may have changed frequency.
Speaker 5 (07:12):
Could be a satellite malfunction.
Speaker 6 (07:14):
No, sir, it's not.
Speaker 3 (07:16):
The satellite canyon's still transmitting.
Speaker 6 (07:18):
What about the relay stations in Guam and Perth, both active.
Speaker 3 (07:22):
So's Jodrell Bank in the UK and Punta de l
Este in Uruguay.
Speaker 2 (07:26):
Did we trust the Russians? In a word, niet.
Speaker 5 (07:31):
They could have cut the transmission themselves, so we're in
the dark until they plant their flag.
Speaker 6 (07:37):
Or kept their flight path undetected while they track hours
so they could destroy Apollo eleven as it approaches the
moon or after it lands.
Speaker 4 (07:46):
I'll call Barkley at cia in teed O'Rourke at the Pentagon.
Speaker 5 (07:50):
Dieck set up a whiteboard track the Russians progress based
on presumed speed and trajectory.
Speaker 6 (07:55):
Gotcha, what do you say?
Speaker 8 (08:02):
Both?
Speaker 3 (08:02):
Another beer?
Speaker 12 (08:03):
Why not?
Speaker 4 (08:04):
The night is young?
Speaker 3 (08:06):
Anything for an American hero much obliged path.
Speaker 2 (08:25):
The night was geriatric. By the time I got home,
Joan was asleep on the couch, an empty bottle on
the floor. When I first met her, she didn't touch
the stuff. I chalked it up to a theatrical career
that never took off. I mean, it couldn't have been
my fault, not in a million years. At the same time,
(08:53):
across town, Rachel Ludwig was digging up more dirt on me.
Speaker 12 (09:00):
Aldrin Junior Edwin Eugene MMP evaluation administered by doctor Paul McCone,
January twenty eighth, nineteen sixty three.
Speaker 9 (09:10):
Okay, in your family history, Colonel, other indications of mental illness, depression,
drug or alcohol abuse.
Speaker 4 (09:19):
Categorically no, My parents are as solid as a rock.
Speaker 11 (09:25):
Your grandparents same.
Speaker 6 (09:30):
On both sides.
Speaker 2 (09:31):
Yes, good?
Speaker 9 (09:34):
Did you know your grandparents?
Speaker 4 (09:37):
My mother's father died before I was born.
Speaker 2 (09:43):
What was the cause of his death?
Speaker 4 (09:55):
Natural? As far as I know.
Speaker 2 (09:58):
I knew further, but I wasn't about to let the
end of his life be the ruination of mine.
Speaker 11 (10:14):
Shipped off from Charleston, South Carolina.
Speaker 12 (10:19):
Yea, Rachel Ludwig Slayton.
Speaker 8 (10:24):
What can I do for you?
Speaker 11 (10:25):
Dike?
Speaker 6 (10:26):
You can go to the window and open the drapes
and look out to the parking lot.
Speaker 8 (10:33):
Yeah, I see you in the phone.
Speaker 6 (10:35):
Booth the l Paradise Motel. The R and the S
are burned out. Is this the best accommodation NASCA come
up with?
Speaker 8 (10:51):
I like the anonymity.
Speaker 6 (10:55):
I thought we'd have heard from you after you saw.
Speaker 8 (10:57):
A Buzz It didn't go well.
Speaker 6 (11:01):
I've got a final simulation today, docking procedure. Buzz wrote
the book on it. That's what put him on the
crew in the first place.
Speaker 12 (11:09):
I'm not changing my recommendation. You and mister Krans can
pressure me all you want, but Colonel Aldren should not
be a part of Apollo eleven, no matter what happens
in the simulation.
Speaker 6 (11:18):
I agree, So does Gene Krantz more or less.
Speaker 12 (11:23):
Really, but Craft doesn't. Is that because he loves Oldren
or he hates me?
Speaker 6 (11:33):
Yes? And because he sees everything he's ever worked for
slipping away. It's killing him?
Speaker 12 (11:41):
Rachel, How do I get him to see that replacing
Colonel Aldren is the best thing for the mission and
for the colonel himself.
Speaker 6 (11:50):
It'll take more than seven year old memos and evaluations.
It would take something current and irrefutable.
Speaker 2 (12:09):
Back at the Aldron house, Joan and I were getting dressed.
It was feeding time, not for Popo the chimp, but
for the vultures from the press.
Speaker 8 (12:19):
Mm hmm, how's your head centered on my shoulders? Why?
Speaker 1 (12:25):
Uh?
Speaker 4 (12:26):
You knocked back the best part of a bottle last
night while.
Speaker 8 (12:29):
You wererapping the All American boy?
Speaker 4 (12:33):
I think you just ought to slow down.
Speaker 8 (12:36):
Popo doesn't mind.
Speaker 2 (12:40):
Are you ready?
Speaker 8 (12:42):
Let's do this hurdle question?
Speaker 5 (12:54):
Are you?
Speaker 6 (12:54):
Are you holding up?
Speaker 9 (12:55):
Okay?
Speaker 1 (12:57):
I think all the wives are happy through old and
so proud.
Speaker 4 (13:01):
Believe me, they're a lot stronger than we are without
them holding down the four.
Speaker 3 (13:08):
In dramatic arts from Rutgers. Did you have aspirations of
a career on Broadway or in Hollywood?
Speaker 8 (13:13):
My role here is well more fulfilling than anything.
Speaker 4 (13:18):
I'd like to amplify my response on orbital docking procedures.
It was the subject.
Speaker 2 (13:23):
Of my doctorate.
Speaker 4 (13:24):
The increase in velocity of the chaser craft carries it
to a higher orbit than the target. Docking occurs at
a rate of point one feet per second to point two.
Speaker 5 (13:34):
Thank you, Colonel Aldron.
Speaker 6 (13:36):
Thanks fellas, question later fell.
Speaker 8 (13:42):
No more questions.
Speaker 4 (13:43):
Thank you, see you, honey.
Speaker 6 (13:50):
Don't you ever cut me off?
Speaker 2 (13:54):
You understand me?
Speaker 7 (13:55):
Ever, I swear to God.
Speaker 6 (13:58):
Duff you were losing them.
Speaker 4 (14:03):
No one gives a goddamn about Joan's theatrical career.
Speaker 6 (14:07):
As a matter of fact, they do. I'll never understand
orbital rendezvous, but they.
Speaker 8 (14:12):
Want to connect with you as if you're a typical
American family. That's what we're selling.
Speaker 4 (14:18):
Maybe that's what it's about for you. But I'm an
engineer and a pilot, not a salesman.
Speaker 2 (14:24):
Duff was always spouting off about us being a typical
American family. But we weren't, so why should we Why
should I have to pretend we were. We weren't just
a husband and wife. We were a team. Joan supported me,
and I let her to me. It was about integrity.
(14:46):
I thought I had it, and NASA didn't. Another on
my list of attributes. I was pretentious as hell. Little
did I know my bigger problem had been watching us
from down the block, waiting for me to leave.
Speaker 12 (15:06):
Yes, missus Aldrin, I'm Rachel Ludwig, flight surgeon for Apollo eleven.
Speaker 8 (15:20):
Yeah, I know who you are. Come in, Thank you,
thanks right through here.
Speaker 10 (15:28):
Thanks?
Speaker 12 (15:29):
Oh well, having a chimp for a pet.
Speaker 8 (15:35):
It's it's that's most people's reaction. Buzz bought, I'm back
from Panama last year for Christmas. Isn't the right popo?
And now you're part of the family.
Speaker 12 (15:54):
From what I've seen you do well with the press.
I was a theater major, happy, thrilled, proud, it's an act.
Saying it for the thousand time and making it sound
like it's the first that's an act.
Speaker 8 (16:10):
Have a seat.
Speaker 12 (16:15):
I would have thought Colonel Aldren would have told you
not to see me in light of my recommendation that
he'd be replaced as a member of the crew.
Speaker 8 (16:23):
My husband is one of the strongest men I've ever met.
Speaker 12 (16:27):
You know, I'm also a psychiatrist.
Speaker 8 (16:29):
And the strongest physically and emotionally.
Speaker 5 (16:34):
Well.
Speaker 12 (16:35):
Questions have been raised as to whether he's capable of
being lunar module pilot and if he can maintain an
emotionally stable life.
Speaker 8 (16:44):
After the mission.
Speaker 12 (16:45):
Questions raised by you based on existing data.
Speaker 8 (16:50):
You know him better than anyone. Are there any insights
that you could get. He's confident, competent.
Speaker 12 (16:57):
His family history indicates a strong predisposition to depression, alcohol abuse,
and suicide.
Speaker 8 (17:06):
Every family has a history.
Speaker 12 (17:08):
Missus Aldren, I know you want what's best for your
husband and your family, and.
Speaker 8 (17:12):
What's best for him is to go to the moon.
How can you question that?
Speaker 12 (17:16):
If confidence and competence were.
Speaker 8 (17:17):
All there, that is all that matters. There are two
buzz aldrons.
Speaker 12 (17:23):
One of them has all the qualities you've mentioned, but
the other is critically damaged.
Speaker 8 (17:29):
I think you know that. I think you should go.
Speaker 12 (17:37):
Not flying would hurt the astronaut, but it might just
save the man.
Speaker 8 (17:43):
You're out to destroy him. And I Won't help You
Get out of My House.
Speaker 13 (17:50):
Out Buzz, starring John Lithgow and Jeffrey Errand, is created
(18:11):
by Stephen Cronish and directed by John Scott Dryden.
Speaker 8 (18:15):
Chapter three is written by Stephen.
Speaker 1 (18:17):
Kronish and Matt Graham. Original music is by Sasha Putnam.
Sound designed by Elouise Whitmore. The producer is Emma Hearn.
The executive producers are Jeremy Fox, John Scott Dryden, Stephen Cronish,
Howard Stringer and Jason English. Buzz is a production of
Thoroughbred Studios, gold Hawk Productions and iHeart Podcasts.
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