 Madalyn Murray O 'Hair , an atheist , later caused controversy by bringing a lawsuit against NASA over the reading from Genesis . O 'Hair wished the courts to ban American astronauts — who were all government employees — from public prayer in space . Though the case was rejected by the Supreme Court of the United States for lack of jurisdiction , it caused NASA to be skittish about the issue of religion throughout the rest of the Apollo program . Buzz Aldrin , on Apollo 11 , self @-@ communicated Presbyterian Communion on the surface of the Moon after landing ; he refrained from mentioning this publicly for several years , and only obliquely referred to it at the time . 
