Word: aldrin
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...close friends. They waste few words on the job, generally talking to each other in technological jargon. Once in a while, Mike Collins cracks a joke. Once in a longer while, Neil Armstrong flashes a fleeting smile. After work, they go their separate ways. It may be true, Aldrin admits, that they have all been somewhat dehumanized by what he calls "the treadmill" of the space program...
Athletics have always been all-important to Aldrin. Recollects Albert Hartman, the boy's primary-school principal: "He was willing to take risks, but when he took one you had a pretty good feeling he knew what he was doing. When he decided to steal in baseball, his judgment was usually on the winning side." As center on the Montclair High School football team, he compensated for his smallness (5 ft. 10 in., 165 lbs.) with ferocity, and helped lead the team to its first league championship in 15 years. Those who played with him recall Aldrin's strong team...
...around with a lot of marbles." After the "marbles" began lifting other pilots into space, he changed his mind and in 1962 became one of the second group of astronauts to be chosen. As a civilian, he is paid more than any other astronaut ($30,054 a year, v. Aldrin's $22,650 as an Air Force colonel and Collins' $20,400 as an Air Force lieutenant colonel), a fact that has stirred resentment. There are men in the space program, in fact, who detect behind Armstrong's supercool all-American image a rigid character who has more faith...
...brilliant, almost straight-A student throughout his years in the Montclair public school system, Aldrin went on to West Point, where he finished third in a class of 475. After combat duty in Korea, he was assigned to the U.S. Air Force Academy as aide to the dean of the faculty, then flew fighters in West Germany. He began thinking about joining the space program, but decided that he needed more education. After getting his doctorate from M.I.T. in 1963?46 years after his father had received his bachelor's degree there?Aldrin was selected for the third group...
...Force Lieut. Colonel Mike Collins, who will orbit the moon in the command module while Armstrong and Aldrin land and return from the surface, is by all accounts the most likable member of the crew. Though he comes from a distinguished military family, he goes out of his way to slop around in jeans and act as unmilitary as possible. He enjoys cooking gourmet dinners and knows his way around French wines. To Collins, everybody is "Babe," and he likes to poke fun at the bloated titles that the simplest pieces of space hardware carry. "What we need...