Talk:Neil Armstrong

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I don't think it is debated - it is pretty well accepted that NA did not say 'a' - NASA initially tried to claim that he did, and that static obscured it, but it is appratent from the initial recording that there is no time for him to have said it. I'd like to make this clear on the page.209.102.125.182 03:52, 18 Dec 2003 (UTC)

I do not really know much of the official NASA actions on the matter. I do know that Armstrong in interviews has declared he said it. Concievably there was a slip of the tongue… an inaudible aspiration of "a" before man. I personally think he flubbed it whatever the case, but it truly is an extremely minor matter compared to the accomplishment represented. Kalki 21:32, 18 Dec 2003 (UTC)

The first comment above is correct - there is quite clearly a smooth glide and no gap betwen "for" and "man" -- no room at all for an "a" -- and Armstrong's abrupt change of tone of voice immediately afterwards also hints that he was aware of his blunder. All this having been said, the fact that Armstrong blew his line delights me, because it reveals the presence of a human being, not just a NASA-programmed robot. The line is spectacularly pretentious and a glaringly obvious product of a committee (or at least the selectee of a committee), and was delivered as if intoned by a bored priest chanting an over-familiar liturgy; much more appropriate to the occasion might have been something improvised along the line of, "Yippeee! We made it!"

Which is why "Houston, Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed." is so much better 83.151.224.154 09:57, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

On NASA's web site are several video editings of the live television images of Armstrong's first step. Armstrong's feet and the lunar surface are actually off-camera - the step onto the surface is actually not visible - so several edits of the video rearrange sound and image, such that Armstrong appears to utter the famous words right after he jumps off the ladder, as if onto the lunar surace -- when in actual fact he jumped from the ladder to the Lunar Module's footpad, stood there for some time, and then stepped onto the moon's surface and uttered the words. NASA appears to have tried to create a more visually dramatic moment by rearranging history a bit; further suggesting that NASA's comments on Armstrong's line are not to be trusted.

I know that the controversy will probably never be settled to everyone's satisfaction… and that it does sound like he says "step for man"; but without positing the idea that there were any gaps in tansmission (which I doubt could be the case) there are people (including myself) who often fail to fully aspirate and enunciate words: and I can see where he could have said "for a man" in a way in which the "for a" were so blended together with the "a" not fully expressed, that mentally he thought he said it clearly enough, while vocally he didn't. It remains a historic flub, whatever the case, but amidst a far more historic accomplishment. ~ Kalki 01:16, 27 Jun 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Further quotes from Neil Armstrong

"I think we are going to the Moon because it is in the nature of the human being to face challenges. It's by the nature of his deep inner soul. We're required to do these things just as salmon swim upstream" Quoted by James R. Hansen in First Man: The Life of Neil A. Armstrong, page 399.