Apollo 11 Astronaut Buzz Aldrin Recalls Taking Communion on the Moon During Historic Flight

Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin is 95 years old now, but he still remembers his historic flight to the moon as if it were yesterday — and that the first liquid poured and the first food eaten were communion wine and bread.

“We wanted to express our feeling that what man was doing in this mission transcended electronics and computers and rockets,” Aldrin told Guideposts.

“One day while I was at Cape Kennedy working with the sophisticated tools of the space effort, it occurred to me that these tools were the typical elements of life today.”

“I wondered if it might be possible to take communion on the moon, symbolizing the thought that God was revealing himself there, too, as man reached out into the universe. For there are many of us in the NASA program who do trust that what we are doing is part of God’s eternal plan for man.”

After a lot of discussion, it was decided that he could carry the bread in a plastic packet, the way regular in-flight food is wrapped — and the wine also because there would be just enough gravity on the moon for liquid to pour, and drink from a cup.

Buzz’s pastor gave him a small silver chalice to take with him.

“I wrote the passage on a slip of paper to be carried aboard ‘Eagle’ along with the bread,” he recalls. “What happened there, of course, the whole world knows … we touched down at 3:30 p.m.”

“Then I called back to Houston … ‘I would like to request a few moments of silence. I would like to invite each person listening in, wherever and whomever he may be, to contemplate for a moment the events of the past few hours and to give thanks in his own individual way,’” he continued. “I read: ‘I am the vine, you are the branches. Whoever remains in me, and I in him, will bear much fruit; for you can do nothing without me.’” John 15:5.”