RocketGeekInFL
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https://www.space.com/neil-armstron...XQDuowQpcpelnSqcU3GWmZVtm0TYWs182GvUtREA5yblA
This is a fascinating read
This is a fascinating read
I have heard the missing "a" may be because of the voice activated microphone. He hesitated long enough after "for" that the Mike shut off, comes back on with "a" but we only hear "man".
And what about the next sentence addressed to his neighbor when he was a kid?
M
He deliberately kept that too quiet for the mic to pick up. He didn't want to have to explain it.And what about the next sentence addressed to his neighbor when he was a kid?
Any doubts about the veracity of this legend are laid to rest by the NASA transcripts of the Apollo 11 mission, which record no such statement having been made by Armstrong. Armstrong himself said in late 1995 that he first heard the anecdote delivered as a joke by comedian Buddy Hackett in California.
[During November 1995, a clever (and slightly risqué) story was widely circulated on the Internet concerning a statement Neil is supposed to have made during the Apollo 11 EVA. At the suggestion of several readers, let me state that Neil never said "Good luck, Mr. Gorsky" at any time during the mission. Indeed, on November 28, 1995, Neil wrote for the ALSJ, "I understand that the joke is a year old. I first heard it in California delivered by (comedian) Buddy Hackett".]
109:24:23 Armstrong: That's one small step for (a) man; one giant leap for mankind. (Long Pause)
[At the time of the mission, the world heard Neil say "That's one small step for man; one giant leap for mankind". As Andrew Chaikin details in A Man on the Moon, after the mission, Neil said that he had intended to say 'one small step for a man' and believed that he had done so. However, he also agreed that the 'a' didn't seem to be audible in the recordings. The important point is that the world had no problem understanding his meaning. However, over the decades, people interested in details of the mission - including your editor - have listened repeatedly to the recordings, without hearing any convincing evidence of the 'a'. In 2006, with a great deal of attendant media attention, journalist/ entrepreneur Peter Shann Ford claimed to have located the 'a' in the waveform of Neil's transmission. Subsequently, more rigorous analyses of the transmission were undertaken by people with professional experience with audio waveforms and, most importantly, audio spectrograms. None of these analyses support Ford's conclusion. The transcription used above honors Neil's intent.]
Amazing how much attention the "a" gets in the whole retelling and analysis. I mean, damn, the dude just flew to the moon and did a harsh landing after all sorts of radar computer overflow errors and such. I find the quibbling over "a" to be ridiculous.
The analysis I was referring to concerned the timing and cadence of what he said. I can't find a reference to it, but I think I read about it in Discover or Smithsonian magazine. The study showed that, based on what we heard on earth, he could have said "a man" and that saying "a man" would have fit into the rythm or pattern of the words as we heard them. So it is quite possible that he said the "a" and it wasn't picked up by the microphone or was lost in transmission.
On the other hand, Armstrong himself thought that he didn't hear enough time for the "a" when he listened to the recording later and he said that he was known to drop syllables at times in other transmissions from the moon.
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