claim: Buzz Aldrin said that his greatest achievement was successfully restraining himself from punching President Trump.
origin: On 30 June 2017, U.S. President Donald Trump signed an executive order to re-establish the National Space Council, which has been defunct since it was absorbed by the National Science and Technology Council in 1993. Â Standing by his side was astronaut Buzz Aldrin, 87, who was the second person to walk on the moon (after Neil Armstrong) as part of the Apollo 11 mission. Trumpâ€™s exchange with Aldrin quickly went viral:Â < â€œWe know what this is, space. Thatâ€™s all it has to say: space. Thereâ€™s a lot of room out there, right?â€ Trump asked Aldrin as he prepared to sign the order. Aldrin replied with a quote from the astronaut character Buzz Lightyear from the movie â€œToy Story.â€ â€œInfinity and beyond!â€ Aldrin said. â€œThis is infinity here,â€ Trump responded as Aldrin looked on, appearing increasingly confused by his comments. â€œIt could be infinity. We donâ€™t really donâ€™t know. But it could be. It has to be something â€“ but it could be infinity, right?â€ > The next day, a web site purporting to be the online arm of a publication called The Rochdale Herald published an article appearing to report that Aldrin said his biggest life achievement was restraining himself from punching President Trump: < Buzz Aldrin has suprised many today by saying that his greatest achievement is not punching Donald Trump. Mr Aldrin attended an event where the President gave a rambling word salad of a speech. Mr Aldrin looked visibly pained as he explained to the Herald, â€œAt first I thought it was a joke or alzheimers awareness thing. As he went on I realised it wasnâ€™t Alec Baldwin but the actual President. How is that possible? Iâ€™ve met Nixon, Johnson and Obama and never experienced anything like that. Hell, even Bush used to be able to get words into the right order.â€ Aldrin, who famously punched a moon landing conspiracy theorist went on to say, â€œHow the hell do you inspire kids with that? Who can honestly say being President is something to aspire to? > The follow-up story is a work of fiction. The Rochdale Herald says on its page that it publishes satire â€œfrom the worldâ€™s worst local newspaperâ€, and the web siteâ€™s â€œAboutâ€ page contains more information:Â < The Rochdale Herald is a satirical, spoof, parody commentary on current affairs, and stuff that annoys and amuses us. We make it up and itâ€™s not intended, in any way whatsoever, to be considered factual. If you read a story on The Rochdale Herald, please take a deep breath before going off the deep end as we probably made it up, apart from the horoscopes, theyâ€™re all completely legit (no they arenâ€™t, we make those up too). We donâ€™t spend much time checking facts or corroborating sources because, and we canâ€™t stress this enough, weâ€™re not actually journalists and are making most of it up. This is an entertainment site that may occasionally confuse some fact with fiction and vice-versa but ultimately weâ€™re writing about the news to make you laugh. We also might talk about sex and swear a bit from time to time so if youâ€™re under 18 please donâ€™t read it. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental, seriously. > Although Aldrin never said that he had restrained himself from punching the President, the astronaut did display some curious facial expressions during the speech: