Editor’s note: The original January 2023 version of this article was lost. The Lee Daily Register rebuilt it in October 2026 from the reporting cited below. The original version described Dr. Faur as a medical doctor; that was not accurate. Her doctorate is in chemical engineering, according to her LinkedIn profile as cited by Agence France-Presse. The original also gave a specific birth date that we could not verify, so it has been removed.
Buzz Aldrin, the Apollo 11 astronaut and second person to set foot on the moon, announced that he married his longtime love, Dr. Anca Faur. He said they wed in a small private ceremony in Los Angeles, and the AP reported the wedding took place on Friday, Jan. 20, 2023, his 93rd birthday.
Aldrin announced the wedding on social media, saying they were “as excited as eloping teenagers,” The Associated Press reported. NBC News said he shared two pictures of himself and Faur with the post. Aldrin’s post said he was also being honored by the Living Legends of Aviation that day, and a spokesperson for the group told NBC News that he was joined at the awards by his new bride and several family members and friends, NBC News reported.
An engineer, not a physician
Faur, whom NBC News and AFP reported to be 63, is executive vice president of Buzz Aldrin Ventures. According to her LinkedIn profile as cited by AFP, she earned a doctorate in chemical engineering from the University of Pittsburgh in 1996.
AFP, again citing her profile, said she previously worked for Union Carbide and Johnson Matthey before joining Buzz Aldrin Ventures, and had also served as treasurer of the California Hydrogen Business Council.
Together for more than four years
NPR reported, in a story carried by GBH, that Aldrin said on Twitter the two had been a pair for more than four years, traveling the world together and spending time with Faur’s grandchildren.
NBC News said this is Aldrin’s fourth marriage and that he previously married Lois Driggs Cannon, Beverly Van Zile and Joan Archer. AFP reported that his three previous marriages ended in divorce.
A brief look at the groom
On July 20, 1969, Aldrin and Neil Armstrong became the first people to walk on the lunar surface; Michael Collins was the mission’s third crew member. At the time of the wedding, Aldrin was the last surviving member of that crew; Armstrong died in 2012 and Collins in April 2021, according to AFP. AFP reported that he retired from NASA in 1971 and has remained a strong advocate of space exploration; NPR described him as a vocal advocate for a crewed mission to Mars.
His later years have included a family legal dispute. According to NBC News, citing The Associated Press, Aldrin filed a lawsuit in 2018 against two of his children and a former business manager, accusing them of misusing his credit cards, transferring money from an account and slandering him by saying he has dementia. Just before the 50th anniversary of Apollo 11, the legal fight ended when the children withdrew their petition seeking guardianship of his affairs and he dropped the lawsuit, the report said.
