Stylised illustration of Buzz Aldrin, Apollo 11 lunar module pilot. US astronaut Edwin 'Buzz' Aldrin (born 1930) was a military pilot with a doctorate in astronautics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology when he joined NASA's Astronaut Corps in 1963. He was part of the Gemini program, and then selected for the Apollo program. As the lunar module pilot for the Apollo 11 mission, Aldrin was the second person to walk on the lunar surface, doing so on 21 July 1969 with Neil Armstrong.