Buzz Aldrin is Awesome for 3 Dumb Reasons

Buzz Aldrin, coolest astronaut ever. Doesn't he look like he could beat Chuck Norris to death simply by thinking about it? Image Credit: NASA.

Astronauts are cool. Every single one. Even Lisa Nowak (the crazy one who drove cross-country in a diaper) is cool. They’re cool even when you ignore the fact that they’ve been to space. A science nerd who is also a crack athlete can’t help being cool.

Some are cooler than others, of course. Julie Payette is cooler than Anousheh Ansari. Sergey Volkov is cooler than Gerhard Thiele. But when it comes to sheer unstoppable coolness, Buzz Aldrin takes the cake, launches it into an Aldrin Cycler orbit, and then punches it in the face.

Buzz Aldrin has so many serious, real accomplishments that it would be hard to pick out the most significant. So instead we took the lazy route and are using the dumbest examples available to illustrate that Buzz Aldrin is made of 100 per cent win on the molecular level.

1. Best Nickname

Astronauts often have stupid nicknames, like Pam “Pambo” Melroy, Frederick “CJ” Sturckow, Yuri “That Damn Communist” Gagarin, and so on. But Colonel Aldrin’s nickname is in a class all by itself. In fact, it’s not a nickname at all.

That’s his real goddamn name. That’s right. A grown man had the brass cojones to not only insist he be called “Buzz”, but even took steps to ensure that you couldn’t legally call him anything else.

Aldrin even has another nickname: “Dr. Rendezvous”. We here at New Frontier News were really hoping that he got this nickname because he was a bit of a pussy hound. Unfortunately, he got the nickname by being obsessed with discussing the technical aspects of spacecraft rendezvous. This actually drops his coolness rating to a still impressive 9.7, or 13 trillion times as cool as Chuck Norris.

Buzz Aldrin on a space walk. If you look very closely, and are insane, you can see his pants flapping in the breeze. Image credit: NASA.

2. The Simpsons

What’s cooler, going to the Moon or being a guest star on The Simpsons? A lot of people under 40 would pick the guest appearance on The Simpsons. Aside from the fact that this probably indicates that society is doomed, snagging a guest spot on the show carries a certain cultural cachet.

What makes it even better is that the episode in question, “Deep Space Homer”, is widely acknowledged as being one of the best ever made. NASA loves it to bits, and there’s even a DVD copy of the episode on the International Space Station.

Aldrin’s best line: “Now we’ll never know if ants can be trained to sort tiny screws in space!”

Buzz Aldrin prepares to blast off into space, accompanied by averagenaut Homer Simpson, and Race Banyon, who we always thought was a character on Johnny Quest.

3. He Punches People

We here at New Frontier News do not condone violence of any kind. Nor do we think anyone “deserves” to be punched in the face. Unless of course that person is Bart Sibrel, world famous moon landing denier and fist magnet.

Let us set the scene: Imagine you are a 72-year-old retired Air Force Colonel, who also happens to have an advanced degree in Astronautics and be officially classified as a living national treasure. You have been lured to a Beverly Hills hotel under the pretext of an interview for a Japanese children’s television show.

When you arrive, Bart Sibrel pops up and demands that you swear on a Bible that you have walked on the moon. When you refuse (possibly due to deep religious convictions and/or a life-long pledge to refuse requests from idiots), Sibrel calls you a coward and a liar and a thief. Do you…

1) Remain calm, and inform Bart Sibrel that he will be hearing from your attorneys regarding an upcoming slander suit.

2) Calmly point out that, even if the Apollo landings had been faked on a sound stage, your extensive military experience shows that you’re not a coward, but Bart Sibrel is still an idiot.

3) Pop him one.

Guess which option Buzz Aldrin went with? Bart Sibrel elected to charge Aldrin with assault, but the judge threw the case out, presumably on the basis that since the blow had been aimed at Sibrel’s head, it was unlikely to damage anything.

We highly recommend watching the video below. It’s hilarious, especially when it repeats the punch in slow motion.