Quote of the Day: “That’s one small step for man; one giant leap for mankind.” –Neil Armstrong, on setting foot on the moon
Forty years ago Monday “we” put a man on the moon. Did you know Neil Armstrong blew that line and that it was scripted? It’s supposed to read “That’s one small step for a man;”. It changes the meaning, makes it sensible. I have long noted the awkward phrasing but let it slide because we all know what he meant and I naively assumed he came up with the line at or near the time of its delivery. If I’d put much recent thought into it I feel confident I would’ve realized it was scripted, but it took Snopes to clue me in. In spite of the slip up, the quote is one of the most widely known utterances in all of history. I wonder who actually wrote it?
It occurs to me it is a good thing a line was prepared in advance for Armstrong. Otherwise, he would’ve spoken off the cuff as he left the spacecraft and might’ve said something less grandiose. For your consideration and enjoyment, I now provide you the likely alternatives to Armstrong’s famously poetic observation had some public relations intern in Houston not come up with “one small step.”
- Holy sh*t, I hope I don’t die.
- Eat my dust Buzz! Nobody cares who comes in second!
- I’m the king of the moooooooon!
- Whoops. Hold on, gotta go back in. Forgot the golf balls.
- Ohhhhh. It burns….it burns! Heh, just messin with y’all.
- One more step and I’m on the moon. Soon as I get home, I’m going to Disneyland!
- Are we live yet? Because I really need to go back to the dressing room and go over my lines one more time.
- Lollipop, lollipop, oh lollylollypop. Lolly POP. badumdumdum…
- I’m squishing your planet.
- Hey, it IS made of cheese.
RIP Neil Armstrong, American legend. (1930-2012)
That was the original post. Classic literature, eh? It was originally published on July 16, 2009, so the post would now read “forty-three years and one and a half months ago Monday….”
Here’s a few more possibilities for the first sentence if it hadn’t been carefully scripted, off the top of my head:
- We got some Dawgggs up in here! Woof Woof!
- That’s one, small….(Buzz shoves Armstrong out of the way) Ima let you finish, but Chuck Yeager had some of the best astronaut skillzz of All Time!
- Y’all watch this shit…..I’m gonna set a new galaxy record in the long jump and the high jump. At the Same Time. Booyah.
- Rocks. Nuttin’ but a bunch a’lousy rocks.
- HELLO (hellohello) Is there anybody Out there?
Y’all add to my list in the comments.
As Wit pointed out in the comments last time, Eddie Izzard covered this ground once. Here’s his take:
take a leap