Posted on 08/01/2019 7:01:43 PM PDT by Perseverando
"One small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind," stated Astronaut Neil Armstrong, JULY 20, 1969, as he became the f irst man to walk on the moon, almost 238,900 miles away from the Earth.
The second man on the moon was Colonel Buzz Aldrin.
Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin spent a total of 21 hours and 37 minutes on the moon's surface before redocking their lunar module Eagle with the command ship Columbia, which was orbiting 57 miles above the Moon's surface.
Buzz Aldrin earned a Ph.D. from M.I.T. and helped develop the technology necessary for the mission, especially the complicated lunar module rendezvous with the command module.
Buzz Aldrin shared a story, "An Astronaut Tells of a little-known but Significant Event on the Moon," printed in Guideposts Magazine, October 1970), and in his book, Return to Earth, published by Random House, 1973.
Before the two astronauts stepped out of the Lunar Module onto the moon's surface, there was a planned time of rest.
Buzz Aldrin asked for radio silence because NASA was fighting a lawsuit brought by an intolerant atheist, Madalyn Murray O'Hair.
She objected to the previous Apollo 8 crew reading the first chapter of the Book of Genesis in their Christmas radio transmission in 1968.
During the radio silence, Buzz Aldrin then privately partook of communion, stating:
"For several weeks prior to the scheduled lift-off of Apollo 11 back in July, 1969, the pastor of our church, Dean Woodruff, and I had been struggling to find the right symbol for the first lunar landing.
We wanted to express our feeling that what man was doing in this mission transcended electronics and computers and rockets ...
(Excerpt) Read more at myemail.constantcontact.com ...
Astronauts back then (no disrespect intended for the later or current personnel) were a remarkable group of people.
In the very early stages of selection, many ideas were thrown around as to what type of individual should be selected for space exploration. Even Poets or Artists were suggested. I’ve read Eisenhower had to cut through all that nonsense, and declared that astronaut candidates would initially be selected from a pool of military aircraft pilots, his thinking was they were the only career field that made any sense due to the experimental and highly technical nature of the job. So they were drawn from aviation and particularly (mostly?) carrier naval aviators as a class, and further refined from the test pilots within that group. There was no shortage of volunteers.
At the time it must be remembered the American rockets had a regular habit of blowing up on the pad. I’d probably do a little praying myself. And who wouldn’t be a little humbled flying 225,000 miles away from the planet, and see your home, the entire world, everyone who ever existed or would exist - as a tiny blue dot floating off in the distance? I think it was Bill Anders on Apollo 8 who started reading from the Bible on Christmas Eve 1968 orbiting the moon with Frank Borman and Jim Lovell. Anders isn’t a preacher or anything like that, but he sure did a fine job on that. I vaguely remember seeing that live as a little kid. I thought it was great, but I couldn’t figure out why Grampa was crying. So they did a lot better than some goddamn Poet anyway ya slice it.
Thanks for sharing this wonderful article.
Bookmarked, and shared on Facebook and Twitter.
That is what Neil Armstrong wrote before the flight, and what he fully intended to say on the Moon, but that is not what he said.
He inadvertently left out the "a" before "man," and no amount of revisionist history will change that fact, nor will excuses of an "overly sensitive VOX circuit" in his radio system that clipped the word.
Wow, I did not know that. I remember this woman and all the trouble she was causing 50 years ago.
Most of the blowing up on the launch pad was in the mid and late 50s. By the time of Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo, we were mostly beyond those early problems. If they were still blowing up with the regularity of the 50s, we would not have had manned space flight.
“Most” is not very reassuring, if it’s your ass on the pad.
At least one explosion was witnessed in person by the Astronauts. There was an umcomfortable silence. And then somebody said “I’m glad we got that out of the way.” LOL!
He claimed in interviews that he had not decided what to say until after the landing. Then his brother later claimed Neil told him what he was gonna say? I dunno. A bunch of pedantry over the “A” doesn’t make sense to me. It’s sort of implied. You’ll never hear it. Try speaking the line, it’s not really there depending accent. Why it became a talking point is strange.
I'm 60 (OMG!!! I'm officially OLD!) so I've listened to many interviews over the decades with Armstrong. Neil thought long and hard what the very first words spoken from the surface of the moon would be, and it was supposed to be "for a man" to contrast with "mandkind." If you recall, after Neil descended the ladder, he stood on the Lander's round pad on the end of the landing strut, so he wasn't technically on the Moon yet. He hesitated on that pad for a couple of minutes as he made sure his suit and other equipment was OK before he took one step off of the pad and onto Lunar soil and made his speech
However, when you listen to the recording of his speech, you can hear after he says "that's one small step for man..." that he hesitates, probably saying to himself "darn it, I messed up my line." Then he says "one..." then hesitates again, probably thinking "should I start over?" Then he finishes very quickly with "giant leap for mandkind," with I'm sure the thought of "forget it, it's over now."
You're right, it's a small thing, and I've read articles in the past where Neil was OK with the "a" being in parentheses when written, as in "That's one small step for [a] man, one giant leap for Mandkind." I've also read articles that claimed Neil did say the "a" but the VX (voice operated transmit) circuit on his suit radio clipped it off. No, it didn't.
I just don't like to see revisionist history on things that I've lived through.
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