Posted 3/28/2004 12:50:00 PM by Douglas

Someone needs to tell Buzz Aldrin to shut the hell up, right after they kick him square in the nuts. Turns out that some of our nation's elite astronaut corps are hocking their wares for a quick buck [site may require registration. Sorry, the Washington Post now officially sucks].

Saturday, devotees of the authentic right stuff will gather in New York at Swann Galleries for an auction of more than 300 lots of NASA items, many of them consigned by former astronauts or their families: flight apparel, maps and charts, autographs, flags, postal commemoratives and personal belongings related to U.S. space missions.

This is government property, plain and simple, and the fact that NASA let any of these boneheads keep this stuff shows incredibly poor judgment on their part.

But back to Buzz. Buzz got paid to do something that only twelve men on the planet can claim to have done. Their government paid them to ride a rocket to another world. They walked around on another planet, and while some see this as the pinnacle of technological achievement, Buzz has decided to hold a grudge.

"I don't think the government has adequately compensated us," Aldrin says when asked by phone to explain the sell-off. "Rarity makes things valuable. There were only three flown toothbrushes" on that mission.

Considering how Buzz has cashed in on his fame, it's obvious that he is overly compensated. If it weren't for NASA and Apollo 11, hell, he wouldn't even be Buzz. He'd be Edwin, sitting in a rocking chair on the porch in Montclair, NJ, complaining about Social Security to people that don't even pretend to listen anymore. Do yourself and NASA a favor: Shut the hell up. You used to be a national hero. Try acting like it.