While I've been browsing around and listening to what's been going on about space I've noticed people have been talking about Neil Armstrong's famous quote. For those of you who don't know Neil Armstrong is, he the first astronaut to walk onto the moon. On July 20th, 1969 Armstrong was able to land Apollo 11(the space aircraft used to go to the moon at the time) on the moon making him the first man to successfully complete the first manned lunar landing(Strauss). When he stepped out of the space craft and began to set foot onto the moon he made one of the most famous quotes in history. He said, "That's one small step for a man, and one giant leap for mankind."
Now if you go to the link and watch the video most of you will think to yourself, "Wait? he never mentioned the "a" part?" That is true. In the video and audio files that NASA has, it seems like Armstrong is saying, "for man" instead of, "for a man." Many people like to argue about this, but you have to think logically. Why would someone intelligent as him mess up on saying some words? The thing is back then technology wasn't as great as today and so you would have some static. Well the static just happened to occur when he said "a." Also, I want you to break down the sentence of the words he said. That's one small step for man, and one giant leap for mankind. Let's take the first part of the sentence before the break. That's one small step for man is referring to all of man. Now the second part he says, one giant leap for mankind. This part is also referring to man or in other words, mankind. It wouldn't make any logical sense for him to say both parts about all of man. Moving forward we can put the new sentence together to make it more logical. That's one small step for a man, and one giant leap for mankind. Doesn't that sound a lot better and makes more sense? To sum it all up, Armstrong's famous quote mystery has now been solved.
My role is complete
This is BE#3
Signing out...
Works Cited
Strauss, Gary. "Neil Armstrong, First Man on the Moon, Dies." USA Today. Gannett,
26 Aug. 2012. Web. 04 Sept. 2012. <http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/space/
story/2012-08-25/neil-armstrong- astronaut-obit/57312732/1>.
YouTube. Dir. NASAexplorer. YouTube. YouTube, 16 July 2009. Web. 04 Sept. 2012
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t-Sm4kTUGCc>.
I'm not going to go into the man/humankind debate here (what could be construed as sexist writing) because don't think that applies to the context of your post. This is an interesting discussion. But is there really a debate about "a" in that quote? I think most people got what he meant, right? My question for you is: was this a planned speech? By Armstrong or by NASA? Why would there be a debate about "all of mankind"? If there is, can you link or discuss why (and who) is really debating this? Let's see some links or names to connect to the argument.
ReplyDeletePersonally, I'd say it sound best as "humankind," but I know the era that he said it and I understand the differences between then and now.
Do you think this quote changed things for astronauts? Were they then to become celebrities and politicians?