Buzz Aldrin Named Honorary Consul General to Moon

Buzz Aldrin has a new title: Honorary Consul General to the Moon.

Is there anything this guy can't do?

He published "Magnificent Desolation: The Long Journey Home from the  Moon" in June and also rapped on a video with Snoop Dogg, Soulja Boy and  Quincy Jones to continue to draw attention to the frontiers of space.

And then there's that astronaut gig.  That worked out pretty well, too.

Forty years after Aldrin and Neil Armstrong became the first men to walk on the moon, county supervisors on Tuesday saluted the contribution of veterans to America's space program.The 79-year-old was an Air Force veteran before joining NASA.

"We are in a great position to establish the commercial activities that  can come from the moon," the former astronaut said of the United States.

Unfortunately, it's too late for Aldrin to resolve that one-sided conflict between NASA and the Moon -- actually, it was a mission to discover water that sounded better when characterized as NASA scientists using a rocket to pummel a defenseless Moon.

Aldrin said he hoped that Los Angeles' support would help bring international attention to the possibilities of colonizing space and the  problem of space debris. Somebody has to keep an eye on all that junk.

"Every nation that has assets in space is in danger of losing those  assets, and an international response is required," Aldrin said.

Obsolete satellite equipment and pieces of rockets from multiple countries orbit the Earth along with smaller bits and particles of space junk,  posing the possibility of collisions with active satellites or spacecraft.

Aldrin has also been a proponent of settling people on Mars and space  tourism, founding the nonprofit ShareSpace Foundation to promote space travel.

Copyright Associated Press / NBC Los Angeles

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