I do think it's subjective, Raoul. Aldrin's use of the word "magnificent" suggests to me that in some hard-to-express way, Aldrin saw the lunar surface as beautiful.

I've visited the deserts of Nevada many times, and been struck by its resemblance to visualizations of the surface of Mars. Some parts of the desert have weathered buttes and hills, large outcroppings of naked stone, in shades ranging from brown to dark blood-red. The desert floor is a pale, greyish butterscotch (and has sagebrush, unlike Mars...I imagine it as a terraforming-in-progress Mars). At sunrise and sunset everything takes on an orange-red glow. In 2000 I saw a half-dozen slender dust devils that had to be a kilometer high, and I thought of the towering dust-devils of Mars caught in MGS images. The land is empty of people, and so quiet.

I find the Nevada desert beautiful, and I'm sure I'd find Mars to be beautiful in the same way. I can describe it, but I can't explain it.

--Robert