Buzz Aldrin has spent a little more than 12 days in space

His specialized study of rendezvous helped to earn him entry into the space program shortly after graduation. In 1963, Aldrin was part of a third group of men selected by NASA to attempt to pioneer space flight. Aldrin was put in charge of creating docking and rendezvous techniques for spacecraft. He also pioneered underwater training techniques, to simulate flight in zero gravity. In 1966, Aldrin and astronaut Jim Lovell were assigned to the Gemini 12 crew. During their November 11 to November 15, 1966, space flight, Aldrin made a five-hour spacewalk the longest and most successful spacewalk ever done up to that time. He also used his rendezvous abilities to manually recalculate all the docking maneuvers on the flight, after the on-board radar failed.

Nearly eight hours of Aldrin's 289 hours and 53 minutes in space were spent outside of a spaceship. When he spent 5.5 hours outside the Gemini 12 spacecraft during its 1966 mission, he set a record for space walks. Aldrin and Armstrong were outside the lunar module for two hours and 31 minutes during the Apollo 11 moon landing. Aldrin has periodically come under fire from conspiracy theorists who believe the moon landing was a fake because of his accomplishments. A moon landing sceptic wanted to file charges after Aldrin attacked him in 2002, but a judge determined that Aldrin had been provoked.