Astronaut Buzz Aldrin in Action

G.I. Joe Classic Collection Colonel Buzz Aldrin Astronaut in NASA Space Suit, 1999. Hasbro, China. Gift of Robert V. Monacelli, 2019.015. Julia Featheringill Photography.

Astronaut and Freemason Edwin Eugene “Buzz” Aldrin, Jr., was born in 1930 in Glen Ridge, New Jersey. Aldrin, the lunar pilot for the 1969 Apollo 11 space mission was, with fellow astronaut Neil Armstrong (1930-2012), one of the first humans—and one of the first Freemasons—to walk on the moon. American manufacturers made a number of wonderful commemorative items, including posters, plates, and toys, memorializing this historic event.  

In 1999 the Hasbro Toy Company released a special edition Buzz Aldrin action figure celebrating the thirtieth anniversary of the moon landing. The Aldrin figure was part of the G.I. Joe: Classic Collection set produced by Hasbro in the late 1990s. 

Buzz Aldrin was initiated into Oak Park Lodge No. 864 in Alabama in 1955 and raised in Lawrence N. Greenleaf Lodge, No. 169 in Colorado in 1956. He is also a member of Clear Lake Lodge No. 1417 in Texas. 

This action figure complements the many other items we have related to Buzz Aldrin in the Library and Archives Buzz Aldrin ephemera collection.  

Buzz Aldrin Masonic Ephemera Collection, 1969-1975. Gift of Ben B. Lipset. Collection of the Scottish Rite Masonic Museum and Library, MM 001.012.

This collection includes a photograph fraternally inscribed to Ben B. Lipset, and a photograph of Aldrin walking on the moon addressed to former Sovereign Grand Commander of the Scottish Rite Northern Masonic Jurisdiction, George Newbury (1895-1904).

Do you have any ephemera related to Freemasonry and NASA? Let us know in the comments below! 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

America's Race to the Moon Inspires a Freemason (and a Boy) to Dream

As I digitized this selection of documents from the Buzz Aldrin Masonic Ephemera Collection for inclusion into the new Van Gorden-Williams Library & Archives Digital Collections website, my work that day pleasantly conjured up one of my most precious childhood memories: the day I witnessed my very first moonshot during the early 1970s.

Press Photograph signed by Astronaut Buzz Aldrin, no date.		While too young to remember America’s first successful moonshot, as I handled Freemason Buzz Aldrin’s signed press photograph, I remembered the exhilaration I felt so long ago on a lazy Sunday morning in April of 1972 as I laid on my grandmother’s living room floor. I remembered being transfixed by the sights and sounds emanating from my grandmother’s television set: The deafening roar of the rocket, and the larger-than-life images of an Apollo rocket, which filled the television screen as it lifted off from Kennedy Space Center in Florida. For me, as for the donor of this collection, Ben Lipset, also a Freemason, seeing our first moonshot was a magical and unforgettable moments. It filled us and other viewers with excitement and inspired dreams of a bigger, brighter future.
Mission Accomplished: A Poem by Ben Lipset, 1969.

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Captions

Buzz Aldrin Masonic Ephemera Collection, 1969-1975. Gift of Ben B. Lipset. Collection of the Scottish Rite Masonic Museum and Library, MM 001.012.