Buzz Aldrin on the moon landing: “We didn’t get to celebrate. Because we were out of town.”

In advance of the 45th anniversary of the moon landing on July 20th, Buzz Aldrin did a Reddit AMA and blessed us with the knowledge that he “prefers the soft singing voice of Karen Carpenter” and is interested in composing a song called “Get Your Ass to Mars!”; that moondust on space boots has the texture of “moist talcum powder”; and that Buzz is a shortened version of “Buzzard,” which his sister called him instead of “brother.” “I’m seriously thinking of adding a middle name,” he adds, “so it would become Buzz “Lightyear” Aldrin.” When asked what he thought about when he first looked back at Earth from space:

Where are the billions and billions and billions of people, on what I’m looking at? We’re the only 3 that are not back there. And we didn’t get to celebrate. Because we were out of town.

The way he describes the moon is beautiful, too: “I realized what I was looking at, towards the horizon and in every direction, had not changed in hundreds, thousands of years. Beyond me I could see the moon curving away — no atmosphere, black sky. Cold. Colder than anyone could experience on Earth.” [Reddit]