Why didn't Buzz Aldrin fly after Apollo 11?

Aldrin was then in position to be on the prime crew of Apollo 11, with Lovell on the backup crew. If not for the Gemini 9 switch, Aldrin likely would not have been Apollo 8’s backup. That leads to yet another interesting detail. read more

Apollo 11 consisted of a spindly lunar lander, Eagle, and an orbiting mothership, Columbia, that were both blasted into space on a giant Saturn V rocket on 16 July 1969. For three days, Armstrong, Aldrin and Collins cruised towards the Moon inside Columbia and spent their time gazing"out the window at the Earth getting smaller and smaller and checking the spacecraft", according to Aldrin. read more

The successful completion of the first manned circum-lunar flight was followed by the announcement of the Apollo 11 crew of Armstrong, Aldrin, and Collins. At that time in January 1969, it was not certain this would be the lunar landing crew, depending on the success of Apollo 9 and Apollo 10 testing the Lunar Module. read more