In July 1969, that relationship between Freemasonry and the heavens became something more than symbolic. A Freemason walked on the Moon.
Between 1969 and 1972, twelve men left their footprints on the lunar surface. In order, they were Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, Pete Conrad, Alan Bean, Alan Shepard, Edgar Mitchell, David Scott, James Irwin, John Young, Charles Duke, Eugene Cernan, and Harrison Schmitt. Of those twelve, three are directly connected with Freemasonry: Buzz Aldrin and Edgar Mitchell were already Masons when they walked on the Moon, while James Irwin entered the Craft after returning from Apollo 15.
The connection becomes even more interesting with Neil Armstrong. The first man on the Moon was not a Freemason, but he was a Senior DeMolay. Taken together, Armstrong, Aldrin, Mitchell, and Irwin mean that four of the twelve men who walked on the Moon—one-third of all lunar explorers—had a documented connection to the wider Masonic family.
Buzz Aldrin: The First Mason on the Moon
By the time Apollo 11 launched on July 16, 1969, Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin had already built an extraordinary career. A graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point, Aldrin served as an Air Force fighter pilot during the Korean War, flying sixty-six combat missions. He later earned a doctorate in astronautics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where his work on orbital rendezvous addressed one of the technical problems that had to be solved before astronauts could travel to the Moon and return safely.
Aldrin was also a Freemason. He was initiated at Oak Park Lodge No. 864 in Alabama and raised a Master Mason in Lawrence N. Greenleaf Lodge No. 169 in Colorado in 1956. He later became a member of Clear Lake Lodge No. 1417 in Texas.
On July 20, 1969, Neil Armstrong descended the ladder of the lunar module Eagle and became the first human being to stand on the Moon. Aldrin followed shortly afterward, becoming the second man on the Moon and the first Freemason to stand on another world.
His Masonic connection to Apollo 11 went beyond personal membership. Before the mission, Grand Master J. Guy Smith of the Grand Lodge of Texas authorized Aldrin to carry a special deputation representing the Grand Lodge of Texas on the Moon. Aldrin also carried a handmade Scottish Rite flag aboard Apollo 11 and later presented it to the House of the Temple in Washington, D.C.
That history is commemorated today through Tranquility Lodge No. 2000, named for the Sea of Tranquility where Apollo 11 landed. The lodge is based in Texas, but its identity deliberately preserves the relationship between Freemasonry and humanity's first lunar landing.
For generations, Masons had contemplated the Moon as part of the symbolic heavens above the lodge. In 1969, Brother Buzz Aldrin left his footprints upon it.
Edgar Mitchell: From DeMolay to the Lunar Surface
The second Freemason to walk on the Moon was Edgar Dean Mitchell, lunar module pilot of Apollo 14. In February 1971, Mitchell and mission commander Alan Shepard landed in the Fra Mauro highlands. Mitchell became the sixth human being to walk on the Moon and spent approximately nine hours working on its surface, collecting lunar samples and carrying out scientific experiments.
Mitchell's connection to the Masonic family began long before NASA. As a young man he belonged to DeMolay, and as an adult he became a Freemason and a member of Artesia Lodge No. 29 in New Mexico. His life therefore connected two parts of the wider Masonic family before carrying him through naval aviation, technical training, the astronaut corps, and ultimately to the lunar surface.
Mitchell's path also reflects qualities familiar to Masons. His accomplishments rested upon preparation, discipline, education, persistence, and the ability to apply knowledge when circumstances demanded it. Before flying Apollo 14, Mitchell contributed to the effort surrounding Apollo 13, developing procedures that assisted in bringing the damaged spacecraft and its crew safely home. His own opportunity to travel to the Moon came the following year.
When Mitchell stepped onto the lunar surface, he became the second Mason to do so. Only six men had walked on the Moon at that point, and two of them were Brothers.
James Irwin: From the Moon to the Lodge
James Benson Irwin became the eighth human being to walk on the Moon as lunar module pilot of Apollo 15 in 1971. Apollo 15 represented an important step forward in lunar exploration. Irwin and mission commander David Scott became the first astronauts to use the Lunar Roving Vehicle, allowing them to travel much farther from their landing site and examine a larger area of the lunar landscape than previous crews.
Their explorations produced one of the best-known geological discoveries of the Apollo program: the so-called Genesis Rock, an ancient sample associated with the early lunar crust. Apollo 15 demonstrated that lunar missions could move beyond brief excursions around the landing site and become extended journeys of exploration.
Irwin's Masonic journey came after his journey to the Moon. On September 8, 1975, he was raised a Master Mason in Tejon Lodge No. 104 in Colorado Springs. His path therefore differed from those of Aldrin and Mitchell. They carried their Masonic experience with them to the Moon; Irwin carried the experience of having walked on the Moon with him when he later entered the Craft.
Taken together, the three men form a remarkable pattern. Aldrin was the second man to walk on the Moon, Mitchell the sixth, and Irwin the eighth. Three members of that extraordinarily small group of twelve men became Brothers of the Craft.
Neil Armstrong and the Wider Masonic Family
The Masonic connection to the Moon actually begins one footprint earlier. Neil Armstrong was not a Freemason, but he had been a member of DeMolay as a young man. He was also an Eagle Scout, earning that distinction in Ohio before attending Purdue University.
When Armstrong stepped from the ladder of Eagle onto the lunar surface, the first man on the Moon therefore came from an organization firmly rooted in the wider Masonic family. DeMolay and Freemasonry are distinct organizations, but DeMolay grew under Masonic sponsorship and developed around principles familiar to the Craft: character, leadership, fidelity, service, responsibility, and personal development.
That makes the first steps on the Moon particularly interesting from a Masonic perspective. Armstrong, the first man down the ladder, was a Senior DeMolay. Aldrin, following him onto the surface, was a Master Mason. Then, among the next four men to walk on the Moon, Edgar Mitchell brought both experiences together: he had been a DeMolay and had subsequently become a Freemason.
Within the first six human beings to walk on another world were Armstrong, a Senior DeMolay; Aldrin, a Master Mason; and Mitchell, both a Senior DeMolay and a Mason. The connection was already broader than a single astronaut or a single Apollo mission.
Beyond the Lunar Surface
The Masonic connection to America's early space program extended beyond the men who actually walked on the Moon. Several prominent astronauts from the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo programs were Freemasons. Gordon Cooper, one of the original Mercury Seven, was a Master Mason of Carbondale Lodge No. 82 in Colorado. Virgil “Gus” Grissom, another member of the Mercury Seven and later commander of the crew lost in the Apollo 1 fire, belonged to Mitchell Lodge No. 228 in Indiana. Donn Eisele, who flew aboard Apollo 7, belonged to Luther B. Turner Lodge No. 732 in Ohio.
Thomas Stafford carried the Masonic connection almost to the lunar surface. As commander of Apollo 10, Stafford led the final full rehearsal for the first Moon landing. His crew traveled to the Moon, entered lunar orbit, separated the lunar module, and descended close to the surface before returning to the command module. Stafford was a Freemason of Western Star Lodge No. 138 in Weatherford, Oklahoma, placing another Brother among the small group of men who pioneered the route that Apollo 11 would soon complete.
The DeMolay connection extended into lunar exploration as well. Frank Borman, commander of Apollo 8, was a Senior DeMolay. Apollo 8 became the first crewed spacecraft to leave Earth orbit, travel to the Moon, orbit it, and return safely. That mission demonstrated that human beings could reach lunar distance and come home, while Apollo 10 showed that the spacecraft and procedures could bring them almost all the way to the surface.
Viewed together, these men form an intriguing thread running through the early American space program. Masons and DeMolays were present among the Mercury pioneers, among the first men to orbit the Moon, among those who rehearsed the landing, and among those who eventually walked upon its surface. The association was not limited to one celebrated astronaut; it appeared repeatedly among the relatively small group of men who carried human exploration beyond Earth.
The True Lunar Lodge
A Masonic lodge has always existed partly in the physical world and partly in the symbolic one. Its walls may be made of plaster, stone, or wood, but symbolically its dimensions extend far beyond the room in which the Brethren meet. Above it stretches the celestial canopy, represented by the sun, moon, and stars. For generations of Masons, those heavenly bodies have suggested order, regularity, light, and the vastness of creation.
Apollo gave that ancient symbolism an unexpected new dimension.
Only twelve men have ever walked on the Moon. Buzz Aldrin and Edgar Mitchell were Freemasons when they made their lunar journeys, James Irwin later became a Master Mason, and Neil Armstrong—the first man to walk on the Moon—was a Senior DeMolay. Taken together, four of the twelve moonwalkers, fully one-third of the men who have stood on another world, had a direct connection to the wider Masonic family.
That proportion is striking not simply because of the number, but because those connections appear at several different points in the lunar story. Armstrong made the first footprint. Aldrin followed him as the first Freemason on the Moon. Mitchell became the sixth man to walk there, and Irwin the eighth. The Masonic connection was therefore not confined to one mission, one astronaut, or one moment in the Apollo program.
Perhaps that is why the story resonates so naturally with Masons. Freemasonry does not teach a man merely to admire its working tools. It asks him to apply the principles they represent: discipline himself, improve his abilities, measure his conduct, use his time wisely, work with others, and continue building upon what has already been accomplished.
The achievement of Apollo depended upon many of those same qualities. Reaching the Moon required mathematics, engineering, craftsmanship, discipline, courage, preparation, cooperation, and an almost relentless willingness to solve one problem after another. No astronaut built the Saturn V, designed the lunar module, calculated every trajectory, developed the spacesuits, or solved all the technical problems necessary to reach the Moon. The accomplishment represented the accumulated labor of hundreds of thousands of people, placed at the decisive moment into the hands of a few men trained to carry that work beyond the Earth.
Among those men were Brothers.
There is something almost poetic in that. For centuries, a Mason could sit in lodge beneath the symbolic celestial canopy and look toward the Moon as one of the familiar lights of the heavens. Then, within the lifetime of men who had first encountered those symbols in lodge rooms on Earth, Brothers crossed the distance and stood upon its surface.
The celestial canopy had not changed. Humanity's place beneath it had.
Somewhere on the lunar surface, among the footprints of only twelve men, are footprints left by members of the Craft. And when the wider Masonic family is considered, one-third of all the men who have walked there share some part of that remarkable connection.
References
DeMolay International. (n.d.). Frank Borman. DeMolay International Hall of Fame. DeMolay International
DeMolay Northern California. (n.d.). Famous DeMolays. NorCal DeMolay
National Aeronautics and Space Administration. (n.d.). Moonwalkers. NASA Science. NASA Science
Order of the Arrow, Scouting America. (n.d.). Eagle Scout first on the Moon. NOAC 2027
Scottish Rite Masonic Museum & Library. (n.d.). Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin. Masonic Hall of Fame. Scottish Rite Masonic Museum & Library
Scottish Rite, Northern Masonic Jurisdiction. (n.d.). Among the stars: Freemason astronauts. scottishritenmj.org
Scottish Rite, Northern Masonic Jurisdiction. (n.d.). To the Moon and back with Buzz Aldrin. Scottish Rite, NMJ
Scottish Rite, Northern Masonic Jurisdiction. (2005). James Benson Irwin. The Northern Light. Scottish Rite NMJ
