Dean Armstrong, the brother of American astronaut Neil Armstrong, recently revealed shocking information about the first person to set foot on the moon.
July 20, 1969, is one of humanity’s most significant days, as Apollo 11 landed on the moon and Neil Armstrong became the first person to walk on this celestial body. He marked that monumental moment with one of the most famous quotes in history – “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.”
Later, Neil Armstrong indicated that this phrase spontaneously came to his mind as he stepped onto the moon, and he had not prepared it beforehand. However, the truth is not as straightforward as it seems, and intriguingly, the person who exposed this information was his own brother.
Neil Armstrong and his famous quote.
In the recently published book titled “Neil Armstrong – The First Man on the Moon” by Dean Armstrong on December 30, 2012, he revealed that his brother had painstakingly prepared and crafted that famous quote a month before Apollo 11’s landing on the moon.
Another interesting revelation from Dean is that the famous phrase, which his brother had carefully prepared, was not conveyed exactly as intended during the transmission. According to Dean, the original wording Neil Armstrong intended to say was “That’s one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind” – “This is a small step for a man, but a giant leap for mankind.” Thus, compared to the phrase commonly known, it lacks the article “a” before “man,” resulting in it being simply “man.”
Later, Neil Armstrong informed his brother that the reason for this discrepancy was due to signal interference, which caused the famous phrase not to be transmitted intact from the moon to Earth, witnessed live by millions.
This information is likely to be accurate. Remember, in 2006, Peter Shann Ford, an Australian computer programmer, wrote software to analyze sound waves, proving that Neil Armstrong’s statement did contain the article “a.” However, he noted that it lasted only 35 milliseconds, too brief for the human ear to detect.
But does it matter whether Neil Armstrong misled about when he created his famous quote, or that it wasn’t truly what he wanted people to hear? Regardless, it was a phrase he came up with himself, and what his brother revealed cannot diminish his monumental contributions to humanity.
Neil Alden Armstrong was born on August 5, 1930, in Wapakoneta, Ohio. He passed away on August 25, 2012, just weeks after his 82nd birthday due to complications following heart surgery.
