Buzz Aldrin AMA

[Stochastic]

Buzz Aldrin has done an AMA on Reddit, excellent read.

http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/2a5vg8/i_am_buzz_aldrin_engineer_american_astronaut_and/

When asked for his most frightening moment he said...

I believe it was after leaving the surface of the moon and completing a successful rendezvous with Mike Collins in the command module, as we approached connecting / docking, the procedures in the checklist said one thing, and I thought maybe doing it a slightly different way, rolling and pitching instead of something else, and I thought that was better on the spur of the moment! It turns out that it was not a good thing to do, because it caused the platform to become locked, and we were not able to use the primary thrusters, the primary guidance, to control the spacecraft, to its final few feet to dock and join the other spacecraft. That was my mistake. I suggested to my commander that we do it differently, and it was his mistake to assume that i knew what I was talking about. So we both made mistakes - brought about by me! We recovered successfully on the "abort guidance" system.
(I don't admit that to many people)
(but I'm sure the mission controllers in Houston, while it was happening or certainly afterwards, they certainly knew what had happened, but fortunately they didn't squeal on us)

wow.

[SpecialGray]

I used to think, what a brilliant guy. An inspiration to us all. Then I saw his smack the 'moon landing was a hoax' guy calling him a liar in the chops and I thought, what a dude