Happy Apollo Day!

@divegeester said
“One small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind”

Apparently Armstrong did say “a” man.

Actually on the first take he fell off the ladder and screamed out "son of a b***h"

The second take is the one we all see.

@divegeester said
So you keep telling us. And yet you are the biggest technical clutz here.

LoL be nice

@divegeester said
“One small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind”

Apparently Armstrong did say “a” man.

In the recently remastered audio the "a" is quite clear, at least to an Australian listening in 2019 to an American. It was doubtful in the original, but back then I hadn't heard a lot of American accents ...

@patzering said
Actually on the first take he fell off the ladder and screamed out "son of a b***h"
The second take is the one we all see.

Haha!

@kewpie said
In the recently remastered audio the "a" is quite clear, at least to an Australian listening in 2019 to an American. It was doubtful in the original, but back then I hadn't heard a lot of American accents ...

I try to imagine what it must have been like to have been there climbing down that ladder.

@divegeester said
50 years ago today something amazing happened as man first stepped onto the moon.

Did they?
Did they really?

Was it amazing?

Surely this belongs in Debates?
Or Science?

@wolfgang59 said
Did they?
Did they really?
Was it amazing?
Surely this belongs in Debates?
Or Science?

On the contrary.

The OP is neither debating nor inviting debate whether the event was faked, nor debating whether it was amazing, nor discussing the scientific technicalities of its machinations. So no it doesn’t belong in either a forum for “debates” nor a forum for “science”.

Furthermore I think it is clear that within the context of RHP the “Debates”(n) forum is generally accepted by the public forum contributors to be where matters of a political theme are “debated”(sic) and that, again generally speaking, the restriction of political matters to the “Debates” forum is deemed to be a sort of unwritten forum rule the adherence of which benefits the other forums, especially this General forum, with the absence of the somewhat depressing head-banging which typifies political debate here at RHP.

I suppose one could argue that the OP of this thread belongs in the thread “On this day” although not really as the thread author subsequently and immediately followed the opening post with a subtopic highlighting a historical nuance of the event and an inferred assertion that history had assigned a misquotation. I guess one could argue, if one was of a pedantic nature, that the second post was inviting debate of sorts although the subtopic requires little of it, as it is in fact well documented and the quote correctly ascribed.

In summing up I assert that this thread is ideal General Forum fodder, and in regards to political topics I would lean heavily on the ubiquitous euphemism “take it to debates spanky.

This is how Cronkite signed off on July 24, after four hours covering the splashdown of the astronauts:

"Well, man's dream and a nation's pledge have now been fulfilled. The lunar age has begun. And with it, mankind's march outward into that endless sky from this small planet circling an insignificant star in a minor solar system on the fringe of a seemingly infinite universe. The path ahead will be long; it's going to be arduous; it's going to be pretty doggone costly. We may hope, but we should not believe, in the excitement of today, that the next trip or the ones to follow are going to be particularly easy. But we have begun with 'a small step for a man, a giant leap for mankind,' in Armstrong's unforgettable words.

"In these eight days of the Apollo 11 mission the world was witness to not only the triumph of technology, but to the strength of man's resolve and the persistence of his imagination. Through all times the moon has endured out there, pale and distant, determining the tides and tugging at the heart, a symbol, a beacon, a goal. Now man has prevailed. He's landed on the moon, he's stabbed into its crust; he's stolen some of its soil to bring back in a tiny treasure ship to perhaps unlock some of its secrets.

"The date's now indelible. It's going to be remembered as long as man survives — July 20, 1969 — the day a man reached and walked on the moon. The least of us is improved by the things done by the best of us. Armstrong, Aldrin and Collins are the best of us, and they've led us further and higher than we ever imagined we were likely to go."

It was just 50 years ago, it was just the moon. A small step of vision, courage and engineering brilliance.

May god help us all, may we help ourselves.