It’s the anniversary of man walking on the moon. It’s an apt day to once again bust some myths still flying around social media land.
CLAIM: “Every Apollo 11 astronaut was a fraternity man.”
FALSE. There were three men aboard Apollo 11, Neil A. Armstrong, Michael Collins, and Edwin Eugene “Buzz” Aldrin, Jr.; Collins and Aldrin went to West Point where there are no social fraternities. Aldrin was elected to Tau Beta Pi, an engineering honor society. Armstrong was a fraternity man having been initiated into the Phi Delta Theta chapter at Purdue University.
CLAIM: “At least one fraternity badge has been to the moon.”
TRUE. The first fraternity badge which made its way to the moon was the one belonging to Neil Armstrong, an initiate of the Phi Delta Theta chapter at Purdue University. He was the first man to walk on the moon. Upon his return to Earth, he presented the badge to Phi Delta Theta and it is on display at the fraternity’s headquarters in Oxford. However, contrary to rumor, he never pinned it on the American flag on the moon, nor did he pin his wife’s Alpha Chi Omega badge to the American flag.
Kappa Sigma Edgar Mitchell, an initiate of the Carnegie Mellon University chapter wore his badge to the moon during Apollo 14. The Kappa Sigma badge resides at Kappa Sigma’s Museum in Charlottesville, Virginia.
Gene Cernan, an initiate of the Phi Gamma Delta at Purdue University, had his badge with him on a 1966 space walk and then again as a member of the Apollo 10 mission.
Gene Cernan’s Phi Gamma Delta badge.
Phi Delta Theta’s documentation about Neil Armstrong’s badge.
CLAIM: “The first American woman in space was a sorority woman.”
FALSE. Sally Ride was not a sorority woman, but there have been many other female astronauts who are sorority women.
This book about astronauts, had these two female astronauts on the same page. One is a sorority woman and the other is not, The sorority woman is Judith Resnick, Alpha Epsilon Phi, and not Sally Ride.
