is what the explorer feels within himself. According to Aldrin, NASA decided Armstrong should walk on the moon first because it was symbolic. In a 2001 NASA oral history, he said NASA discouraged coaching astronauts, a position reflected in a NASA memo. July 20, 2019, is the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing when American astronaut Neil Armstrong became the first person ever to walk on the moon. NASA has also stood by the moonwalker.Īrmstrong, who died in 2012 at age 82, said he came up with the statement himself. Why was Neil Armstrong chosen to be the first man on the moon According to Chris Kraft, a March 1969 meeting among Slayton, George Low, Bob Gilruth, and Kraft determined that Armstrong would be the first person on the Moon, in part because NASA management saw him as a person who did not have a large ego. In 2006, a computer analysis of sound waves found evidence that Armstrong said what he said he said. While it seems no one heard the "a," some research backs Armstrong. I can't hear it when I listen on the radio reception here on Earth, so I'll be happy if you just put it in parentheses." The two astronauts returned to orbit, joining Collins.
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They picked up bits of moon dirt and rocks. He and Aldrin walked around for three hours. He said there was a lost word in his famous one-liner from the moon: "That's one small step for 'a' man." It's just that people just didn't hear it."ĭuring a 30th anniversary gathering in 1999, the Apollo 11 commander acknowledged that he didn't hear himself say it either when he listened to the transmission from the July 20, 1969, moon landing. On July 20, 1969, Neil Armstrong became the first human to step on the moon. "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind."īut after returning from space, Armstrong said that wasn't what he had planned to say.