Immigration can trip up anyone. That was true even before 2025 when an Uber Eats driver taking a wrong turn can get deported and a dispute over a Frontier Airlines carry-on bag fee can get a student visa revoked. These formalities are no joke!
Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin had to fill out a customs declaration when he came back from walking on the moon in 1969, because he left the United States and then ‘re-entered’. He also had to submit an expense reimbursement for the business trip too, something many of us can relate to.
Credit: NASA
He spent only $33.31 ($290 in current dollars). All his meals were covered, and so were the flights. He just claimed ground transportation. His journey was meticulously logged, noting “Gov. Air” transportation from Houston to Florida, “Gov. Spacecraft” from Florida to the moon, and then returning via splashdown in the Pacific Ocean near Honolulu aboard the USS Hornet, before finally heading back to Houston.
#TBT My mission director @Buzzs_xtina’s favorite piece of my memorabilia. My travel voucher to the moon. #Apollo11 pic.twitter.com/c89UyOfvgY
— Dr. Buzz Aldrin (@TheRealBuzz) July 30, 2015
On arrival he completed an Agriculture, Customs, Immigration, and Public Health General Declaration (Form 7507). Aldrin, Neil Armstrong, and Michael Collins officially declared their cargo as “moon rock and moon dust,” approximately 50 pounds worth. The document requirs listing the arrival craft. Theirs was identified as “Apollo 11,” departed from “Moon,” and arrived at “Honolulu, Hawaii, U.S.A.”
Yes the #Apollo11 crew also signed customs forms. We brought back moon rocks & moon dust samples. Moon disease TBD. pic.twitter.com/r9Sn57DeoW
— Dr. Buzz Aldrin (@TheRealBuzz) August 2, 2015
You’d think they might be exempt from such formalities, and in any case did they ever cross an identified border leaving the country? They never entered another country, so in a sense wasn’t it a domestic trip from Florida to Hawaii – just going really really high?
Astronauts no longer fill out customs declarations upon returning from space, thanks to the 1984 U.S. statute (19 U.S. Code §1484a) that states items returned from space by U.S. spacecraft are exempt from importation procedures.
Credit: NASA
In 2002, he punched a moon landing denier in face when the man was aggressively trying to get him to admit that his walk on the moon was faked. The Los Angeles County District Attorney’s office declined to press charges. And in 2018, Aldrin ‘went ballistic’ on a Delta Air Lines check-in agent after he missed a flight.
So Aldrin deals will all of the hassles of air travel, and not always gracefully!
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