Meeting Buzz Aldrin!
Alan Duffy
I had a horribly awkward fanboy moment when I got to meet the legend himself Buzz Aldrin! There are few people in this world I consider a living legend but Buzz is one, so getting to shake his hand and then hear about his experiences on the Moon and his hoped for plans about getting to Mars was incredible. Unsurprisingly, Buzz was an absolute gun when it came to orbital dynamics (he has a PhD in it from MIT!) but I wasn’t prepared for just how funny and sharp with off-the cuff jokes he would be. Totally amazing experience and it’s all thanks to my friend and colleague Dr Lisa Harvey-Smith who opened for Buzz at the Melbourne Town Hall with a beautiful talk of how the Moon and Mars had inspired her to go into astronomy.