Neil Armstrong's line

I know Cecil has done a column on this, but that’s not really what I’m focusing on here (plus I have to dash off in a minute and can’t grab the link right now). Whether or not Armstrong did flub his line, my question is I guess twofold: What do people think the line is, and if they think it’s the doesn’t make sense version, do they think about how it doesn’t make sense?

Growing up, I always thought the line was “That’s one small step for man (or Man, I guess), one giant leap for Mankind.” As is pointed out in Cecil’s column, this doesn’t make sense; it’s like saying “That’s one small step for mankind, one giant leap for mankind.” However, I never thought about how this didn’t make sense until reading Cecil’s column on it.

It came up because of some sitcom I was watching the other day used the “incorrect” version, and it got me thinking as to whether or not people even think about the fact that it doesn’t make sense. I don’t think they do. I think it’s come into our cultural consciousness as a soundbyte, and we don’t think about the majority of those half the time. Just kind of hilariously typical of America.

I watched the landing live and heard him say, “That’s one small step for Man, a giant leap for Mankind”. I thought afterwards about what a weird line it was, and decided he must have meant to say “for a man”. As I remembered, the words “for Man” were spoken very closely together and quite clearly, so it is hard to pretend he actually said “for a man”.

I thought maybe I’d heard the line had been written by a professional speechwriter, but don’t know the details and am not at all confident this was so.

I think there would be no better testimony to the power of the moment, than that he flubbed the prepared line.

Hasn’t there been some recent audio analysis that indicates he didn’t flub it? I thought it sounds like “that’s one small step for(uh) man”. “for a man” and “for man” are almost indistinguishable in that accent anyway.

Yes there was. Mind you, they pulled the audio from NASA’s site and didn’t use the original recordings. Armstrong also thought of the words himself once he was on the Moon.

The summer of 1969 there was, of course, a lot of buzz about The First Words To Be Spoken On The Moon. Radio station WABC in New York (which was Pop Music back then, not talk – and a major market) ran a contest soliciting ideas about what the first words ought to be (I never did find out what any of the entries were, including the winner).
The first time I heard Neil Armstrong’s words, they sounded wrong to me. I know there’s ambiguity in the recording, especially since there’s that statis “cracke” right at the critical moment, but it certainly sounds to me as if he’s saying “That’s one small step for Man”, without the “a”. The timing and cadence sound too wrong for the article to be in there. And without that “a”, the whole point of the line is wrong. I just figured, all these years, that Armstrong flubbed the line. Understandable, too, under the circumstances. Books might kindly gloss over this, or give him the benefit of the doubt, but it seems most likely to me that screwed up, plain and simple.

Hm, maybe there’s a disparity between people who were around (and old enough) to watch it live, and those of us who weren’t. I just never really had any reason to think about the line-- it was just one more soundbyte from history. But I can imagine that if I had been one of the people awaiting this historic moment, I would have thought about what he said at the time.

BTW, can anyone cite that the line was either prepared for him or “ad libbed” (like he hadn’t been thinking about it all the way there-- and while we’re at it, how did they decide who got to be first? Rosham [RPS-- rock, paper, scissors], cage match in zero-g, whoever had the best yo mama joke?)?

ETA: pulled the link from Cecil’s column, in case anyone’s interested. Not so pertinent to our discussion, unfortunately.

Groan. :slight_smile:

i recall that the line was prepared – as I said, there was a lot of thought about what the first line spoken on the Moon would be – there’s no way they would’ve lret this be ad-libbed. I don’t have a cite for you, though. I’ve no doubt that one exists.

I used to wonder about that until I heard a radio interview with Buzz Aldrin, who said that it had been decided by NASA that the commander would get out first; Armstrong was the commander. That decision had been made long before the actual crew had been selected. Sorry, no cite.

When Armstrong first walked on the moon, he not only gave his famous “one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind” statement, but followed it by several remarks, including the usual talk between him, the other astronauts and Mission Control. Just before he re-entered the lander, however, he made the enigmatic remark "Good luck Mr. Shapiro."Many people at NASA thought it was a casual remark concerning some rival Soviet Cosmonaut. However, upon checking, there was no Shapiro in either the Russian or American space programs. Over the years many people questioned Armstrong as to what the “Good luck Mr. Shapiro” statement meant, but Armstrong always just smiled.On July 5, 1995, in Tampa Bay, FL, while answering questions following a speech, a reporter popped the 26-year-old question to Armstrong. This time he finally responded. Mr. Shapiro had finally died and so Neil Armstrong felt he could answer the question.When he was a kid, he was playing baseball with a friend in the backyard. His friend hit a fly ball, which landed in the front of his neighbour’s bedroom window. His neighbours were Mr. & Mrs. Shapiro. As he leaned down to pick up the ball, young Armstrong heard Mrs. Shapiro shouting at Mr. Shapiro. “You want a blow job?! You’ll get a blow job when the kid next door walks on the moon!” :smiley:

I still agree with Robert Klein that it’s amazing he didn’t sell out to some corporation and make the first words on the moon, “Coca-Cola! The pause that refreshes!”

Good thing it didn’t happen today.

Snopes says otherwise, I’m afraid.

In case anyone doesn’t know, it’s “Mr Gorky”, and it’s an urban legend

ETA: beaten to it!

I knew it was a joke. Found it here. Hence the :smiley:

Also, Cecil has a version of it.

Got to give him props for that. Had it been me, the first words spoken on the moon would have been “HOLY SHIT!! I’M ON THE FREAKIN’ MOON!!”

Gotta ask – Cite?

Youtube video for those who want to refresh their memory as to the sound of the infamous phrase.

A Man on the Moon by Andrew Chaikin. I don’t have my copy handy to find where in the book it is, but that’s where I read it. IIRC, it was Pete Conrad who made a bet with an Italian reporter about Armstrong’s line. The reporter insisted that it had been scripted and that NASA had told Armstrong what to say. Conrad said that it wasn’t, and told her that he’d prove it by what he said when he landed on the Moon (which he hadn’t done yet). She bet him $500 and Pete told her what he would (and did) say when he got to the Moon, “That may have been one small step for Neil, but for a little guy like me it was a really big one!” (More or less, I’m sure I’m mangling the quote.)

And according to the biography of Neil Armstrong, First Man, you’re wrong. Buzz lobbied hard to be the first one out the door and on to the Moon, however, the brass at NASA didn’t want him to be the one, and shot down all his objections, even though he went so far as to providing historical cites showing that for the commander to be the first one would be breaking tradition. They managed to shut him up by pointing out that it would be easier to have the commander go out first. Buzz conceded defeat at this point. Apollo 14 astronaut, Alan Bean, however, says that had NASA wanted Buzz to be the first one out the door, it would have been no more difficult than Neil being out first.
First Man states that the reason Neil was chosen, both for the Apollo 11 mission and to be the first one out the door, is that NASA wanted the man who would be listed in the history books along side such folks as the Wright brothers and Columbus to have the character Lindbergh. Armstrong, though enigmatic (NASA was terrified that Neil would ignore an order to abort the landing if something went wrong.), seemed to be closest to Lindbergh of all the astronauts.

Buzz, however, did manage to be the first man to “boldly go where no man has gone before” as on his way down the LM ladder, he paused to take a whiz. :smiley:

I must be really slow, because I have to confess that I don’t understand what you’ve written. How does what Pete Conrad’s statement about what He said when he landed on the moon prove that Neil’s line wasn’t scripted? After the first moon landing, who cared what the heck anyone else said?

I’ve no cite handy, but another reason for the commander to exit first was because the way the door opened inward, it blocked the pilot (standing on the right side). They tried it in the lunar lander simulator and damaged it trying to maneuver around each other to let the pilot get out first.