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by nrbafna 5052 days ago
This is from a reddit ama where the OP has worked through Apollo 1-14. He claims it was Neil in the photo - http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/xove1/iama_97_year_old...
3 comments

There were a ton of huge inaccuracies in that AMA. Here's a few things that were pointed out to be wrong: http://es.reddit.com/r/bestof/comments/xp6il/methusela1915_i...

I wouldn't rely on that for any real information.

EDIT: Not to mention the fact that the suit says "E Aldrin" on it. I have a hard time believing they swapped suits, too.

High-res NASA version of the picture where the name on the suit is visible:

http://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a11/AS11-40-5903HR.jpg

Not vouching one way or the other for the AMA, but he claims that Armstrong is in the "astronaut saluting the flag" picture (http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/dd/Buzz_salu...), not the one where you can see the "E Aldrin" name tag.
Yeah, that's a good point, but he also says this: "So that's who I said it was. When Aldrin came back, he told me no, first thing Armstrong did was pass the camera back to me."

It's still hard for me to believe they were passing the camera back and forth. That, with all the other inaccuracies, lead me to believe it's fake. Why someone would purposefully fake that I don't know...

Kottke uploaded the CBS news coverage of the landing to youtube. The photo is taken after the flag was raised, about seven minutes into this video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FwZPLfFcYoA&feature

Due to a glitch in the video it's not clear which astronaut is which leading up to the photograph, but if you watch them afterward when they talk through what they're doing, it's clear that Aldrin was the one posing next to the flag.

This is actually rather important. But I guess there is a high chance he misremembered? Hm. When they sent out a correction this should be able to track down?
Well. What he says about including stripes in the astronaut suits for future missions checks out - http://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/alsj-CDRStripes.html