Apollo Lunar Surface Journal Banner

 

Syd Buxton with Buran Atmos Aero Test Model

Syd Buxton

I was born and raised in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), Africa. As a child I recall hearing the first lunar landings on the radio; seeing grainy TV pictures later; and also looking up one night in the early 1970s and seeing Skylab passing overhead, visible as a fast moving point of light. At high-school I was a member of the school astronomy society, and many a clear, African evening was spent gazing at the stars, planets and comets, usually through binoculars or a friend's 3-inch reflector telescope, but also through the school's elderly 12-inch reflector.

Upon leaving school I trained and served as a military pilot, flying amongst other things, the Douglas DC-3/C-47. After several years there followed a brief spell flying commercially for a small air charter company, before moving to the UK and getting married. I then spent 16 years in the Royal Air Force, most of the time as an air-to-air refueling and transport pilot, flying the Handley-Page Victor and Vickers VC10, but also as a flying and staff instructor with the RAF's Central Flying School. On one of a series of regular military detachments to the Gulf state of Bahrain, in 2004, I had the opportunity to have a close look in and around the hulk of a Russian 'Buran' shuttle. This particular shuttle was OK-GLI (BST-02), the atmospheric aero test model, and it had been partially dismantled and abandoned for a few years in a dock-side scrap yard following curtailment of an exhibition tour in Australia. I believe that the craft has since been bought by the Auto & Technik Museum in Sinsheim, Germany but due to legal problems is still in Bahrain. (Although it has been shifted slightly from when I saw it, keen Google Earth users can still see the wings and fuselage of this shuttle here: N 26°11'54.18" E 050°36'8.03" )

Having retired from the RAF, I still live in the UK and now fly Boeing 777s as a long-haul pilot for a major European airline. On one flying trip to Chicago in March 2006 I had the pleasure and honour of chatting to a very well-travelled passenger aboard my aircraft - Gemini and Apollo astronaut Jim Lovell! He seemed sure that a 24-hour stop in Chicago was more than enough time to "have a few beers"!

Recently I had been reviving my interest in space, via a couple of astronomy-related software programs and the internet, which is where I came across a link to the Apollo Lunar Surface Journal. When I saw the detailed transcripts and documents available on the website, and the superb audio and visual content, particularly the hi-res mission photos, I became hooked.

Having a general interest in digital and panoramic photography, I am pleased to be able to contribute some updated (re)assembled Apollo panoramas and pdf documents to this huge and wonderful resource that is the ALSJ website!

March 2008

Syd Buxton at his day job

Syd at his day job.