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Unfortunately, better known is the man who made the Moonwalk famous on stage than those who actually stepped foot on our fellow celestial body, but it’s high time we remedied that situation with some help from Miss Cellania at Mental Floss.

Since we’ve already given Neil Alden Armstrong his due, we’ll take some time to feature a few other members of this incredibly elite club.

Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin (above)

After graduating third in his class at West Point in 1951 with a degree in science, Buzz Aldrin flew 66 combat missions as an Air Force pilot in the Korean War. Then he earned a PhD at MIT. Aldrin joined NASA as an astronaut in 1963. In 1966 he flew in the Gemini 12 spacecraft on the final Gemini mission. Aldrin accompanied Neil Armstrong on the first moon landing in the Apollo 11 mission, becoming the second person, and now the first of the living astronauts, to set foot on the moon. Aldrin had taken a home Communion kit with him, and took Communion on the lunar surface, but did not broadcast the fact. Aldrin retired from NASA in 1971 and from the Air Force in 1972. He later suffered from clinical depression and wrote about the experience, but recovered with treatment. Aldrin has co-authored five books about his experiences and the space program, plus two novels. Aldrin continues to work to promote space exploration.

Buzz Aldrin is 82 years old.

Charles “Pete” Conrad

Pete Conrad was a Princeton graduate and Navy test pilot before entering the astronaut corps in 1962. He flew on the Gemini V mission and was commander of Gemini XI. Conrad was commander of the Apollo 12 mission, launched during a lightning storm which temporarily knocked out the command module’s power shortly after liftoff. When Conrad stepped onto the moon, he said,

”Whoopee! Man, that may have been a small one for Neil, but that’s a long one for me.”

Conrad later flew on the Skylab 2 mission as commander with the first crew to board the space station. He retired from NASA and the Navy in 1973, after which he worked for American Television and Communications Company and then for McDonnell Douglas.

Pete Conrad died on July 8, 1999 in a motorcycle accident. He was 69.

Full story at Mental Floss.

A walk on the moon.