ANDY: In the community I lived in when I was a kid, everybody’s dad was an astronaut. I thought my dad was cool because he could pole-vault. I was 11 when he was chosen for the Apollo mission, and even then I don’t remember thinking it was a big deal. It was just: “Okay, so he’s the guy they picked...” I was certain they’d picked him because he had the best scientific mind. When it got to the mission, it was the crowd of press in our front yard that interested me, because these guys had doughnuts and wanted to play football. But when I watched my dad bouncing about on the moon, man, I was scared. Now I know my dad, and when I saw him hopping like that, I knew what he was doing: he was trying to locate the best kind of bi-pedular locomotion in zero gravity, wearing a 180lb backpack. I was such a self-centred little jerk, all I could think was: “There’s a bunch of cables on the ground, he’s going to trip and fall and he’s going to lie there like a bug on his back in front of three billion people and every one of my classmates.”

When he got back, he and my mom went on a world tour, which Mike and Jan and I weren’t invited on. That sucked. We had a nanny and we terrorised the poor woman, but we were kids and we were pretty resilient.

The whole thing was very tough on my dad. Everybody wanted him to be a hero and they created a role for him he didn’t want. He’d lived his entire life as a scientist and an engineer and nothing in his background prepared him for what happened. To be all of a sudden in the spotlight was hell for him. There were so many demands on his time and everyone wanted answers he couldn’t give. They’d ask over and over: “How did it feel?” The guy was a scientist; he could tell you how they made it happen but didn’t have the words to describe how it felt. My dad was trained to be a pilot, an engineer and an astronaut, not a public figure or a philosopher. He never eulogised about what he’d seen, nor did we ask it of him. From his point of view, it was time to move on to the next mission, something which never happened.

I can’t say with any certainty why he became depressed. The thing that really bothered him was that, having been to the moon, he had big ideas for what should happen next. He wanted to get back to his job and be involved in the project which eventually became the shuttle, but he had to go on world tours and talk to Congress, a role he hated and wasn’t cut out for. I don’t know which was the biggest stone on the camel’s back — his mother had taken her life the year before — but combine it all with incipient alcoholism and something has to give.

If none of these things had happened and he hadn’t gone to the moon, would he still have been an alcoholic? Probably. I don’t remember him being drunk around mission time, but he certainly drank then. His mother had been an alcoholic, it was just part of his make-up. It didn’t come easy to admit his alcoholism and his mental problems to the air force. It wasn’t helpful to his career and it was tough on the family, though we’d been living with it for so long we were perfectly aware of what was going on. Sure, it was difficult and isolating, but no different to anyone else who has alcoholic parents. We didn’t do much together when he was drinking heavily, but by then I was 15 and all I wanted was gas for my motorcycle.

Finding my own path was very important. I had this drive to make sure that whatever I did, I wasn’t going to do what my dad did. I wanted to be an academic, and I became a sovietologist, but I’ve ended up in aerospace doing something that brings me tremendously close to my father. We talk almost every day. I’d love to flatter myself and say I have a mind like his, but I tend to be more grounded in the realities of politics and business. My father is a wonderful thinker. My role with him seems to be: “But, Dad, this isn’t going to work.” I’m one of the few who tells him what he needs to hear, rather than what he wants to hear. And to his credit, he probably listens to me more than he does most people.

I have a better relationship with my father now than at any point in my life. He’s certainly evolved, and today he’s the most open guy in the world, which is impressive, considering he’s spent a good part of his life in an environment where you didn’t get to have emotions. He even enjoys talking about going to the moon, which he can discuss with a twinkle in his eye now. But it’s taken years to get to this point. You’ve got to remember, this is a guy whose mind is 50 years ahead of the rest of us. He’s not thinking about 50 years ago at all.

BUZZ: I went to West Point [the elite US military academy] straight out of high school, so I was a very young fighter pilot in combat situations, trying to live up to other people’s expectations for a good part of my early life. Failure wasn’t an option in my family. That came from my father — he was certainly an achiever, and I took that on in terms of academic and sporting activities. But I don’t think I expected the same of my own sons. I was sensitive to the fact that it was a hard road for a child to tread.

My eldest son, Mike, calls himself James now. It’s not all that surprising to me that he’s different to a lot of folks. He grew up sensitive to people and animals, rather than being interested in sports. It wasn’t long before he acknowledged he was gay. I don’t think that was hard for me. I’m numb to trauma and change and disaster. I’ve had to deal with the inherited aspects of alcoholism and depression, which was passed on from my mother’s side of the family. Her father, an army chaplain, committed suicide before I was born and she took her life a year before I went to the moon. There’s sadness, but you carry on the best way you can. Mike has probably inherited a number of my tendencies toward moodiness, depression and addiction. But he’s doing well now. He lives in Hawaii and his love is taking care of animals. I’m trying to help him get into things that could be more productive, but he’s not communicating much right now. I’m sure he’s had feelings that his younger brother is the favourite son. Andy turned out to be quite a good student. But both Andy and Jan feel that Mike is the most intelligent of the three of them.

I didn’t spend much time with my kids and I probably inherited that trait from my parents. I was pretty preoccupied; there wasn’t a lot of interchange. There were confrontations which in retrospect might have had a negative impact on the child. Obstinacy. They wouldn’t do what I wanted them to do. I look back and think: “Jeez, I could’ve handled it better than that.” I feel bad about it now, but I was doing the best I could at the time.

When my kids were growing up in the 60s and 70s there was a distinctly anti-establishment theme going on in school. I exposed both Andy and Mike to the opportunities of flying planes, but it was obvious neither one of them would have a military career. It was a great joy to me when, after graduating, Andy decided to pursue a masters in space policy at George Washington University. He began to amaze me a good bit by his progress and thoughts on space travel. I tend to be single-minded and purposeful when pursuing my interests and not that involved in chitchat. People say: “You don’t want to be with Buzz at a cocktail party, because all he wants to talk about is space.” But Andy’s got the social gift. People tell me all the time how much they like him and how great he is to work with. I find that very rewarding.

We talk all the time, he and I. He takes the corporate stance. I tell him what I’m dreaming about, and he talks about “shareholder value”, which pisses me off a little bit, because I want things to go my way. I wasn’t close to my father. He came from the era of aviation pioneers and they would get together and talk about the past. I always thought that was kind of sad. I’d think: “Why aren’t they talking about the future?”

Interviews: Caroline Scott.

Portrait by Patrick Fraser