Buzz Aldrin evacuated from South Pole after falling ill

Aldrin is being flown to New Zealand for treatment

Buzz Aldrin, astronaut (Getty)

Buzz Aldrin, the second astronaut to walk on the moon, has been evacuated from the South Pole after becoming ill.

Aldrin, 86, was visiting Antarctica as a tourist when he fell ill. He will be taken to New Zealand for medical treatment, according to the National Science Foundation, who described him as “ailing”.

The NSF said in a statement: “The NSF has agreed to provide a humanitarian medical evacuation flight for an ailing visitor from its Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station to McMurdo Station on the Antarctic coast and then to New Zealand.

“The patient is Buzz Aldrin, who, in 1969, became one of the first men to walk on the Moon, as part of the two-man lunar landing crew of Apollo 11.

Details of his condition will not be released unless “conditions warrant”, the statement added.

Aldrin is the only surviving moonwalker from the Apollo 11 mission.