Buzz Aldrin will become professor at Florida Tech

Apollo astronaut Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin will lead new studies on space exploration at the Florida Institute of Technology in Melbourne under an agreement in the final stages of negotiations.

University President Anthony Catanese broke the news Thursday during an interview at FLORIDA TODAY for an upcoming edition of “The Matt Reed Show” on WEFS-TV.

Aldrin will be a research professor of aeronautics, “and we’re going to establish the Buzz Aldrin Institute,” Catanese said. “We’re going to continue our connection with the space program, this time focusing on getting younger people interested in going to Mars.”

Aldrin was the second person to walk on the moon as part of the Apollo 11 mission that blasted off from Kennedy Space Center in July 1969. His first words on the moon’s surface: “Beautiful view. Magnificent desolation.”

In recent years, Aldrin has championed a human mission to Mars. In a New York Times guest column, he criticized plans to revisit the moon as “more like reaching for past glory than striving for new triumphs.”

A more detailed announcement will come “very soon,” Catanese said.

“We think it’s going to make a great addition,” he said. “Our largest major is still mechanical and aerospace engineering, so it’s still of great interest to our students.”

Aldrin, 85, has a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, New York, and a doctorate of science degree in astronautics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge. Before serving as Landing Module pilot on Apollo 11, he flew with James Lovell on Gemini 12 in 1966.

On TV

Watch the full interview with Florida Tech President Anthony Catanese on Wednesday, Aug. 19. “The Matt Reed Show” airs at 11:30 a.m., 4:30 p.m. and 10 p.m. on WEFS-TV:

•WEFS, Bright House Channel 9 and 1068

•DirecTV and AT&T Uverse channel 68

•Comcast channel 381

•DISH Network channel 30

•Cable cutters can watch via digital antenna at 68.1