Via Slashdot [1], we find this Houston Chronicle [2] story which informs us that Neil Armstrong in fact did not flub his lines in one of the most important, and brief, speeches ever made.
As we all learned in grammar school, on July 20, 1969 when Neil Armstrong became the first human to set foot on the moon, he spoke the now famous phrase, "One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind." What far fewer people know though is that Neil Armstrong has always maintained over the years that what he actually said was, "One small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind," but a communication glitch forever elided one of his memorable words.
Now Sydney, Australia based computer programmer Peter Shann Ford has conducted audio analysis of NASA's recordings using the Canadian sound-editing shareware program Goldwave [3] and has vindicated Neil Armstrong's recollection of the events.
On Thursday, Ford and Auburn University historian James R. Hansen, Armstrong's authorized biographer, presented the findings to Armstrong and others in a meeting at the Smithsonian Institution's Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C. They repeated the presentation at NASA's Washington headquarters, which has long backed Armstrong's version of the phrasing.
"I have reviewed the data and Peter Ford's analysis of it and I find the technology interesting and useful," Armstrong said in a statement. "I also find his conclusion persuasive. Persuasive is the appropriate word."
While it's nice to know that Neil Armstrong didn't drop his article in the heat of the moment, I wonder how long before NASA starts selling the Director's Cut DVD of the moon landings?*
*Note to conspiracy theorists and the humor impaired: The moon landings were not faked [4].
Updated 10/24/2006: This post was in Carnival of Bad History #10 [5] where David Beaver from Language Log notes that Peter Shann Ford's analysis is so much bunk [6]. Very nice debunking.
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