ALDRIN: The name

Buzz Aldrin is pretty well known — an astronaut and second person to walk on the moon.

His father, Edwin Eugene Aldrin Sr., was well known in his own right. For starters, he was 7 years old when the Wright Brothers made the first flight in 1903, and he lived to see his son walk on the moon.

Amazing.

Aldrin Sr. studied aviation at Clark University, learning from Robert Goddard, rocketry pioneer. He served in the U.S. Army in the first and second World Wars, becoming an officer and skilled aviator.

According to Buzz, his father was friends with Orville Wright, plane inventor; Jimmy Doolittle, whose squadron of B-52s conducted the bombing of Tokyo in 1942; and Charles Lindbergh. He drank with Howard Hughes at the Wings Club in Manhattan.

Clark University’s website features a story about its famed alum.

Aldrin ‘flew to Germany aboard the Hindenburg, and as young Buzz would delight in telling his friends, his father predicted that the famous zeppelin would one day crash, which it did in spectacular fashion in 1937 in Lakehurst, N.J.’

‘In 1928, Aldrin had accepted a job with Standard Oil, heading up the company’s fledgling aviation division. Though based at 30 Rockefeller Plaza in New York, he flew all over the U.S. and Europe preaching the virtues of commercial air travel and was widely acknowledged as one of the country’s first flying executives. In Europe he flew a 6,000-mile tour of 12 European capitals, setting several city-to-city speed records.’

He played a key role in establishing the Air Force Institute of Technology (AFIT), which began as the Army’s first test pilot school at McCook Field, Ohio.

Aldrin Sr. married Marian Moon — an interesting last name for what the future held for their son.