45 Years Ago Today

Earth from Moon1

Three people were circling the moon that day. They took this picture, containing all of humanity in one shot. Then two of those people proceeded to land on the moon. It was a giant leap for mankind.

One thought on “45 Years Ago Today

  1. One of my big peg peeves is that for 45 years, everybody quotes Neil Armstrong as says, “One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.”

    …because man and mankind for kinda the same thing!

    He claimed his whole life that he said, “One small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind.”

    He also landed the module manually (avoiding boulders), as the computer system failed him at the last minute. His heart rate was over 200. PLUS — they did the dishes, and had a sleep before they stepped out onto the moon. PLUS–Buzz Aldrin said the first thing HE did when he got out there was pee. Classy act.

    However, I found this today on WIKI:

    That’s one small step for (a) man, one giant leap for mankind.
    Words said when Armstrong first stepped onto the moon (20 July 1969). In the actual sound recordings he apparently fails to say “a” before “man” and says: “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.”

    This was generally considered by many to simply be an error of omission on his part. Armstrong long insisted he did say “a man” but that it was inaudible. Prior to new evidence supporting his claim, he stated a preference for the “a” to appear in parentheses when the quote is written.

    In September 2006 evidence based on new analysis of the recordings conducted by Peter Shann Ford, a computer programmer based in Sydney, Australia, whose company Control Bionics helps physically handicapped people to use their own nerve impulses to communicate through computers, indicated that Armstrong had said the missing “a.”

    This information was presented to Armstrong and NASA on 28 September 2006 and reported in the Houston Chronicle (30 September 2006). The debate continues on the matter, as “Armstrong’s ‘poetic’ slip on Moon” at BBC News (3 June 2009) reports that more recent analysis by linguist John Olsson and author Chris Riley with higher quality recordings indicates that he did not say “a”.

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