It is not widely known that Buzz Aldrin took communion during the Apollo 11 moon mission and read John 15:5 I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing. The ritual and scripture reading were not broadcast nor publicized because of a woman named Madalyn Murray O'Hair. In 1971, she filed a lawsuit challenging the open readings of the Bible by US astronauts (who are federal employees) during their spaceflights - spurred by the reading from the book of Genesis by the crew of Apollo 8. A very vocal atheist, she spent a lot of time bringing about lawsuits involving religion. Her son William J. Murray became a Christian in 1980 and later a Baptist minister, publishing a memoir in 1982 about his spiritual journey. His acceptance of Christ as his savior incensed his mother to the point where she made this public announcement: "One could call this a postnatal abortion on the part of the mother, I guess. I repudiate him entirely and completely for now and all times...he is beyond human forgiveness." In 1995, Madalyn Murray O'Hair was brutally murdered and dismembered along with another son and a granddaughter - the victims of a kidnapping and extortion plot.
