Neil Armstrong's One Small Misstep

That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.

It’s one of the most historic and recognizable statements ever made. But Neil Armstrong likely flubbed his lines as he made those momentous steps onto the moon. After all, he was only human.

First of all, cut him a break: Neil, who died today at the age of 82, was leading humanity’s pioneering venture to another celestial body by stepping off a three-and-a-half-foot drop while simultaneously speaking to the largest audience in human history. And mulling over the possibility that in putting on his bulky space suit he had broken the circuit breaker for the switch that started the Eagle’s engine for ascent.

The original line, which he composed in his head two hours before landing, should have read: “one small step for

a

man” given that man and mankind in English mean pretty much the same thing. In the heat of the moment, it’s thought that Armstrong unwittingly dropped the article, bestowing to history an elegant yet logically contradictory quotation.

In the immediate aftermath, Neil and NASA were quick to make a face-saving correction, blaming static for the missing word. But many press reporters remained unconvinced. Listening to NASA recordings, Neil’s words are certainly audible with little gap between “for” and "man. Moreover, there is a suspicious pause after “man,” with some hypothesizing that Neil had, at that point, realized his error.

Not long after the voyage, a representative from Grumman, which built the lander, played him a recording of his epigram. “Damn, I really did it,” Neil is reported to have said. “I blew the first words on the moon, didn’t I?”

But in the 2005 book First Man: The Life of Neil A. Armstrong, Armstrong shared his perplexity about the line with his official biographer James L. Hansen. “It doesn’t sound like there was time for the word to be there. On the other hand, I didn’t intentionally make an inane statement, and … certainly the ‘a’ was intended, because that’s the only way the statement makes any sense.”

Given the stress of the moment and lack of sleep in the previous twenty-four hours, Armstrong was, until the end, unsure whether or not he actually included the ‘a’. Instead he pleads for leniency. “I would hope that history would grant me leeway for dropping the syllable and understand that it was certainly intended, even if it wasn’t said – although it might have been.”

Of course, few remember what other things Armstrong, or anyone else for that matter, said on the moon. Prior to his famous line, his transmissions to Mission Control were banal; he was an astronaut, not a poet: 'Yes, the surface is fine and powdery. I can kick it up loosely with my toe. It does adhere in fine layers, like powdered charcoal, to the sole and sides of my boots. I only go in a small fraction of an inch, maybe an eighth of an inch, but I can see the footprints of my boots and the treads in the fine, sandy particles.') But that First Sentence, Andrew Smith wrote in the 2005 Moon Dust, is “one of the most memorable lines ever offered the English language” and “as famous as anything Shakespeare wrote.”

In 2006, Peter Ford, an Australian anchor man-turned-software developer, wanted to do more than just grant the legendary astronaut leniency. Instead he sought vindication. “When they started in talking about the phrase … I thought that was pretty stupid,” recalled Ford. “Later, I thought Armstrong was such a good pilot, so precise, it’s unlikely he would actually screw up a line.”

Using computer software developed by his company Control Bionics to analyze the speech pattern of Armstrong’s words, Ford claimed to have found a signature for the missing article, stating conclusively that it was both spoken and transmitted.

Critics though were unconvinced, citing ambiguous data and confirmation bias. So far Ford’s findings have not been validated by any other audio analysts. NASA’s online transcript recognize that Armstrong probably did leave out the ‘a’.

And while this ongoing conversation might irked Neil Armstrong until his death, it’s ultimately not that big of a deal. We know what you meant Neil. It’s all good. As the first man on the moon, mankind gave you license to break any grammatical rules you’d like.

• This Is How We Walk on the Moon: What The First Lunar Landing Looked Like
• Q+A: Space Historian Andrew Chaikin Remembers Apollo 11
• Watch: Apollo 11’s Launch in Slo-Mo Feels Like Apollo 22
• In Case They Didn’t Come Back From the Moon
• More Motherboard NASA Coverage

Updated August 25, 2012 to reflect Armstrong’s death.