Omega
Buzz Words — Buzz Aldrin
Omega
Buzz Words — Buzz Aldrin
Clooney led the tributes to Aldrin, echoing the mood of the hall, when he said: “I was eight years old in the summer of 1969 and was watching live on television as the first two human beings set foot on the Moon – two of only 12 people in history to do it. It was important for the world that Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong succeeded. What they did meant so much to all of us and I can’t thank them enough for their courage and leadership. So, it’s an exceptional honour for me to meet Buzz and to be here with him today.”
Still under huge demand to talk about the incredible feat of 48 years ago, Aldrin is keen to point out that he had a full career before, and has been working solidly since, preparing for adventure and exploration into the future. “That’s my life,” he says. “I have served my country ever since I swore an oath at West Point Military Academy and I continue to serve now.”
It is Rocket Science
Encouraged by his friend and military colleague Ed White, Aldrin originally applied to NASA in 1962. White was selected but Aldrin wasn’t until the third selection of astronauts in 1963, becoming the first astronaut with a Doctorate, which led to his nickname: Dr Rendezvous. His first space flight aboard Gemini XII in 1966 enabled Aldrin to experience extravehicular activity, when he was tasked with taking pictures of stars at night. “We were travelling around and the sun was shining, so we were pretty much just sightseeing,” he says, laughing. “I decided to take a picture of myself and this is how I made the first selfie in space.”
“Pictures taken of us during this time have been seen billions of times and my Speedmaster is there on full display. It’s funny, but things seem to become more covetable as time goes by – the jacket that I wore inside the spacecraft has been on loan to the Smithsonian for a long time and I have just got it back. We are thinking of making a replica because all the millennials are re-Instagramming the picture saying they want one. I guess it’s the same with the Speedmaster.”
Watch this Space
There’s no doubt that Aldrin is something of a style leader. Eschewing more traditional suits for a flying jacket, stars-and-stripes braces and space socks, each hand is fully loaded with gold rings including his West Point Academy ring and one that was a gift from Muhammad Ali. Along with numerous metal and beaded bracelets, his left wrist bears a curiosity that any watch enthusiast would envy: a bracelet double mounted with two Omega watch-heads – a yellow-gold De Ville Chronoscope and a quartz X-33.
When I ask him about the two watches I expect him to tell me they are set to different time zones, but no. “One is a show watch,” he says pointing at the Chronoscope. “Expensive, gold, it looks good. But this one, this is the reliable one, more efficient, more accurate and more attuned to space – it’s my backup.” Later he comes up with a more imaginative explanation, crediting gravity with his decision. “If you have one heavy watch on, it slips round to the side of your wrist. This way, gravity keeps everything in place – one on the top, one on the bottom. It’s balanced. And I like to be a little different.”
On his right wrist he wears the new 60th anniversary Speedmaster. “This one I’m going to make some modifications to,” he says. “I’m going to make it a Mars watch, so here on Earth I’ll be able to tell what time it is on Mars.” No easy task for a watchmaker, bearing in mind that a day on Mars is 24 hours, 37 minutes, and 22 seconds long.
As for the use of the Speedmaster in space, we all know the story of Apollo 13, where on-board computers failed and the corrections needed for re-entry were timed using an Omega wristwatch. But for Aldrin and the Apollo 11 crew there were no such emergencies, the Speedies remaining as very important back-ups. “It was a little difficult to activate the stopwatch to time things, but we didn’t need to do that really,” says Aldrin.
“To be honest, time in space is a very different thing. The time most meaningful was not GMT or Houston time it was mission elapsed time – the time from lift off. The flight plan had to stay the same, so if it was in GMT and there was a delay, then everything would be off. When you are walking around on another planet, knowing what time it is in Houston, Texas is not really all that important to you. But we were in communication with Earth all the time and we wore the watches set to the time of the shifts of the people back in mission control – those guys are living on a schedule and their shifts change every eight hours.”
Life on Mars
After leaving NASA, Aldrin returned to the Air Force – the first astronaut ever to do that – but found himself with an assignment that he did not want. He had chosen not to be retrained as a test pilot but was put in as Commander of the test pilot school. “That didn’t sit too well with me and I was uncertain of what I was going to do,” he says. “I’d been to the Moon, I’d travelled the world, but what would I do next? I felt discouraged and disappointed and I had to overcome these things to be able to take what I do and my experiences and make them relevant for the future and allow me to continue to serve my country.”
Fiercely proud of what he and his colleagues achieved with the Apollo programme and lunar missions, Aldrin believes that the future lies on Mars. “There is little point in any more planetary landings – we did that in 1969 – so, instead of rendezvous to bring people back to earth, we need to have reusable rendezvous so that we can re-use the landing module instead of leaving it behind. My work over the past few decades has been to develop a Mars cycling orbit with perpetually cycling reusable spacecraft allowing continuous resupply of the planet.”
“Everyone has their own driving force, expectations and objectives. For me it is an obligation to serve my country that drives me. But not everyone is as purely motivated as I am. A president is going to take an idea because it is good for him and that’s OK – it’s fine, it means he is valuing the decisions he makes because he’s on record as having made them. I’ve learned to preface my approach with two words: fiscal discipline. We need to stop things that are being done just because the vested interest doesn’t want to see change. I want to point out to the people making decisions what their legacy could be if they adopt my approach because I have carefully considered the people who may be carrying these things out and the practicalities involved.”
Military pilot, astronaut, adventurer, academic and space strategist, the man who spontaneously and famously described the Moon’s surface as “magnificent desolation”, is more active today than most high-achievers a fraction of his age, but I can’t help but wonder if, now in his ninth decade, he has any plans to slow down? Staring deep into my eyes, Aldrin smiles and, half laughing, ends the interview with: “Sure, I could have retired, but idle minds get into trouble.”
Portrait Photography: Ben Harries
Creative Direction: Jo Grzeszczuk
Grooming: Sarah Exley
Additional images: courtesy of Omega and NASA.