2nd man to land on moon Buzz Aldrin reveals claim from NASA and customs form !!

Immigration is movement of people into a country – all passengers coming to India fill-up  'Indian Customs Declaration Form' which will seek details of the person and the articles being carried.  One of the rules is every passenger flying into India will have to declare Indian currency exceeding Rs.10,000 being brought by them.  They also need to declare the dutiable and prohibited goods.  There are some limits prescribed beyond which every article will have to declared and duty paid accordingly. 

Away in UK, Immigration officers launched a dawn swoop on a giant sandwich-making factory and arrested 32 workers as part of a major Home Office crackdown on the employment of illegal migrants.Officials raced down the production line and caught people trying to dump counterfeit identity documents and using mobile phones to warn friends not to come to work.

In a movie, a Prof. would remark that World only remembers the ‘Firsts’- and those coming Second have no place in history !!

In 2012 Olympics, Usain Bolt created an Olympic record in 100M race,  finishing in 9.63 seconds. His mate from Jamaica, Yohan Blake finished second at 9.75 seconds. Buzz Aldrin (Edwin Eugene Aldrin Jr.) an American engineer and astronaut was the second person to walk on the Moon. He was the Lunar Module Pilot on Apollo 11, the first manned lunar landing in history. He set foot on theMoon at 03:15:16 (UTC) on July 21, 1969, following mission commander Neil Armstrong. He is also a former U.S. Air Force officerand a Command Pilot.

Apollo 11 was the spaceflight that landed the first humans on the Moon, Americans Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, on July 20, 1969; Armstrong became the first to step onto the lunar surface six hours later on July 2.   The third member of the mission, Michael Collins, piloted the command spacecraft alone in lunar orbit until Armstrong and Aldrin returned to it.  It was so near and yet so far for Collins !

An interesting report in MailOnline describes that Aldrin billed NASA $33.31 for the historic space journey, which is thought to have included his rental car to Cape Kennedy.  He had to fill-up Immigration form too – the U.S. custom form from the 1969 space trip shows he brought back 'moon dust' and 'moon rock' samples as cargo. 

Legendary astronaut Buzz Aldrin has revealed some captivating pieces of Apollo 11 memorabilia on social media in the last few days.Among them is the travel voucher for the historic journey into space in 1969.One sheet shows that his return journey from Houston, Texas, via the moon, cost only $33.31. Adjusted for inflation, that would be about $216.59 in today's U.S. currency.  He also shared a photo of the signed customs form the astronauts had to complete when they returned to the U.S. from the moon.

Once he filed his claim, Aldrin was presented with a check by the government reimbursing him for the grand total of $33.31.  Aldrin, now 85, posted pictures of the aged-looking papers on his Twitter and Facebook accounts.On the travel voucher featuring his out-of-pocket expenses, the details of the trip were noted as being on a 'government vehicle' and 'government spacecraft'.

After receiving hundreds of comments and questions from fans, Aldrin took to social media again where he shared the signed customs form that detailed what the astronauts brought back from the moon.In the photo's caption, Aldrin noted they declared 'moon rocks' and 'moon dust samples' to the customs officials.The form, which is dated July 24, 1969, is signed by both Neil Armstrong, who was the first man on the moon, and Aldrin, who was Apollo 11's Lunar Module pilot.

The 46th anniversary of the historical Apollo 11 moon landing was recently celebrated on July 20.

With regards – S. Sampathkumar

10^th Aug 2015.

Photos & news source : www.dailymail.co.uk