Wikipedia

One small step

When Neil Armstrong became the first person to step foot on the Moon, he said "That's one small step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind". Recordings of Armstrong's transmission do not provide evidence for the indefinite article "a" before "man", leading to some controversy about whether he said the word or not. After years of Armstrong and NASA insisting that the static obscured it, Armstrong conceded that he must have dropped the "a" after carefully listening to the recording. Several scientific analyses have been conducted with some suggesting that he did say the "a" and others suggesting that he did not. As a result, the "a" is often included in brackets in the quote.

"That's one small step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind"
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Armstrong stepping foot on the surface and saying the phrase

Background

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The Lunar Module Eagle landed on the Moon as part of Apollo 11 in 1969. After Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin were ready to go outside, Eagle was depressurized, the hatch was opened, and Armstrong made his way down the ladder.[1] At the bottom of the ladder, while standing on a Lunar Module landing pad, Armstrong said, "I'm going to step off the LM now". He turned and set his left boot on the lunar surface at 02:56 UTC July 21, 1969,[2] then said, "That's one small step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind."[3] The exact time of Armstrong's first step on the Moon is unclear.[4]

When Armstrong made his proclamation, Voice of America was rebroadcast live by the BBC and many other stations worldwide. An estimated 530 million people viewed the event,[5] 20 percent out of a world population of approximately 3.6 billion.[6][7] 

Wording

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Armstrong prepared his famous epigram on his own.[8] In a post-flight press conference, he said that he chose the words "just prior to leaving the LM."[9] In a 1983 interview in Esquire magazine, he explained to George Plimpton: "I always knew there was a good chance of being able to return to Earth, but I thought the chances of a successful touch down on the moon surface were about even money—fifty–fifty ... Most people don't realize how difficult the mission was. So it didn't seem to me there was much point in thinking of something to say if we'd have to abort landing."[8] In 2012, his brother Dean Armstrong said that Neil showed him a draft of the line months before the launch.[10] Historian Andrew Chaikin, who interviewed Armstrong in 1988 for his book A Man on the Moon, disputed that Armstrong claimed to have conceived the line during the mission.[11]

People have speculated that the line was inspired by The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien, where the character Gollum says "not a great leap for a man, but a leap in the dark". After leaving NASA in 1971 and moved to a farm in Lebanon, Ohio, Armstrong named the farm "Rivendell", a valley in Tolkien's works. In the 1990s Armstrong also had email address related to Tolkien. Armstrong however has said that it was only after Apollo 11 that he read the works of Tolkien. People have also speculated that the idea for the quote may have come from an April 19, 1969, memo by Willis Shapley in which he wrote "the first lunar landing as an historic step forward for all mankind". Armstrong said however that did not remember reading the memo.[12]

Recordings of Armstrong's transmission do not provide evidence for the indefinite article "a" before "man",[3] resulting in "man" having the same perceived meaning as "mankind" rather than "a person".[13] NASA and Armstrong insisted for years that static obscured it. Armstrong stated he would never make such a mistake, but after repeated listenings to recordings, he eventually conceded he must have dropped the "a".[3] He later said he "would hope that history would grant me leeway for dropping the syllable and understand that it was certainly intended, even if it was not said—although it might actually have been".[14] There have since been claims and counter-claims about whether acoustic analysis of the recording reveals the presence of the missing "a";[3][15] Peter Shann Ford, an Australian computer programmer, conducted a digital audio analysis and claims that Armstrong did say "a man", but the "a" was inaudible due to the limitations of communications technology of the time.[3][16][17] Ford and James R. Hansen, Armstrong's authorized biographer, presented these findings to Armstrong and NASA representatives, who conducted their own analysis.[18] Armstrong found Ford's analysis "persuasive".[19][20] Linguists David Beaver and Mark Liberman wrote of their skepticism of Ford's claims on the blog Language Log.[21] A 2016 peer-reviewed study again concluded Armstrong had included the article.[22] NASA's transcript continues to show the "a" in parentheses.[23]

Q: Did you misspeak?

A: There isn't any way of knowing.

Q: Several sources say you did.

A: I mean, there isn't any way of my knowing. When I listen to the tape, I can't hear the 'a', but that doesn't mean it wasn't there, because that was the fastest VOX ever built. There was no mike-switch — it was a voice-operated key or VOX. In a helmet you find you lose a lot of syllables. Sometimes a short syllable like 'a' might not be transmitted. However, when I listen to it, I can't hear it. But the 'a' is implied, so I'm happy if they just put it in parentheses.

Omni, June 1982, p. 126

Protection by Armstrong

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Armstrong guarded the use of his name, image, and famous quote. When it was launched in 1981, MTV wanted to use his quote in its station identification, with the American flag replaced with the MTV logo, but he refused the use of his voice and likeness.[24] He sued Hallmark Cards in 1994, when they used his name, and a recording of the "one small step" quote, in a Christmas ornament without his permission. The lawsuit was settled out of court for an undisclosed sum, which Armstrong donated to Purdue.[25][26]

Legacy and cultural impact

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When Pete Conrad of Apollo 12 became the third man to walk on the Moon, on November 19, 1969, his first words referenced Armstrong. The shorter of the two, when Conrad stepped from the LM onto the surface he proclaimed "Whoopie! Man, that may have been a small one for Neil, but that's a long one for me."[27]

Things named after the quote include a Star Trek: Voyager episode, the documentary film One Small Step: The Story of the Space Chimps, as well as an animated short film, a novella and the non-fiction book One Giant Leap.

The sculpture of Armstrong at Purdue University has an inscription of the quote.[28]

The quote has been described by Richard Gray for weather.com as the most famous disputed quote in history.[29] Ian Crouch of The New Yorker has described the quote as "among the most famous proclamations of the [20th] century".[13]

See also

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References

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  1. ^ Cortright 1975, p. 215.
  2. ^ Harland 1999, p. 23.
  3. ^ a b c d e Mikkelson, Barbara; Mikkelson, David (October 2006). "One Small Misstep: Neil Armstrong's First Words on the Moon". Snopes.com. Retrieved September 19, 2009.
  4. ^ Stern, Jacob (July 23, 2019). "One Small Controversy About Neil Armstrong's Giant Leap". The Atlantic. Retrieved July 25, 2019. When he tried to match the air-to-ground transcript to an audiovisual recording, he found that the transcript was behind—and that one of the records had to be wrong about the time of Armstrong's first step.
  5. ^ "Apollo 11 Mission Overview". NASA. April 17, 2015. Archived from the original on February 9, 2018. Retrieved March 4, 2018.
  6. ^ Stuckey, Alex (October 29, 2018). "'Giant leap' for space collectibles: Neil Armstrong's personal collection goes on auction block". Houston Chronicle. Associated Press. Retrieved May 26, 2019.
  7. ^ "Total Population—Both Sexes". United Nations Population Division. Archived from the original (xlsx) on July 30, 2017. Retrieved April 7, 2018.
  8. ^ a b Plimpton, George (December 1983). "Neil Armstrong's Famous First Words". Esquire. pp. 113–118.
  9. ^ "Apollo 11 Post Flight Press Conference, 16 September 1969". NASA. Archived from the original on October 16, 2015. Retrieved July 24, 2015. Yes, I did think about it. It was not extemporaneous, neither was it planned. It evolved during the conduct of the flight and I decided what the words would be while we were on the lunar surface just prior to leaving the LM.
  10. ^ Gray, Richard (December 30, 2012). "Neil Armstrong's family reveal origins of 'one small step' line". The Daily Telegraph. Archived from the original on July 1, 2015. Retrieved July 24, 2015.
  11. ^ Chaikin, Andrew (January 4, 2013). "Neil Armstrong Didn't Lie About 'One Small Step' Moon Speech, Historian Says". Space.com. Purch. Archived from the original on July 24, 2015. Retrieved July 24, 2015.
  12. ^ "Lots of People Have Theories About Neil Armstrong's 'One Small Step for Man' Quote. Here's What We Really Know". Time. July 15, 2019. Retrieved August 31, 2025.
  13. ^ a b Crouch, Ian (August 25, 2012). "Neil Armstrong's Voice". The New Yorker. ISSN 0028-792X. Retrieved August 31, 2025.
  14. ^ Nickell 2008, p. 175.
  15. ^ Goddard, Jacqui (October 2, 2006). "One small word is one giant sigh of relief for Armstrong". The Times. London. Retrieved December 31, 2012.
  16. ^ Ford, Peter Shann (September 17, 2006). "Electronic Evidence and Physiological Reasoning Identifying the Elusive Vowel "a" in Neil Armstrong's Statement on First Stepping onto the Lunar Surface". collectSPACE. Archived from the original on September 27, 2007. Retrieved August 28, 2007.
  17. ^ "Software Finds Missing 'a' in Armstrong's Moon Quote". CNN. Associated Press. October 1, 2006. Archived from the original on October 4, 2006.
  18. ^ Smith, Veronica (October 2, 2006). "Armstrong's Moon landing speech rewritten". Cosmos. Agence France-Presse. Archived from the original on August 31, 2007. Retrieved August 29, 2007.
  19. ^ Carreau, Mark (September 29, 2006). "High-tech analysis may rewrite space history". Houston Chronicle. Archived from the original on October 4, 2006. Retrieved September 30, 2006.
  20. ^ Carreau, Mark (September 30, 2006). "Hear what Neil Armstrong really said on the moon". Houston Chronicle. Retrieved July 25, 2019.
  21. ^ Language Logs:
  22. ^ Baese-Berk, M. M.; Dilley, L. C.; Schmidt, S.; Morrill, T. H.; Pitt, M. A. (2016). "Revisiting Neil Armstrong's Moon-Landing Quote: Implications for Speech Perception, Function Word Reduction, and Acoustic Ambiguity". PLOS ONE. 11 (9): 1–11. Bibcode:2016PLoSO..1155975B. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0155975. ISSN 1932-6203. PMC 5014323. PMID 27603209.
  23. ^ Jones, Eric M. "One Small Step, time 109:24:23". Apollo 11 Surface Journal. NASA. Archived from the original on January 2, 2013. Retrieved December 18, 2012.
  24. ^ Anson, Robert Sam (November 2000). "Birth of an MTV Nation". Vanity Fair. Archived from the original on December 27, 2014. Retrieved March 4, 2018.
  25. ^ Hansen 2005, p. 628.
  26. ^ "Neil Armstrong, Hallmark Settle". Chicago Tribune. December 2, 1995. Archived from the original on January 3, 2011. Retrieved May 19, 2011.
  27. ^ Apollo 12 First Steps on YouTube
  28. ^ "Neil Armstrong sculpture, lunar footprints, unveiled at Purdue". www.purdue.edu. Retrieved August 30, 2025.
  29. ^ "Origin of Armstrong's 'One Small Step...' Quote | Weather.com". weather.com. January 1, 2013. Retrieved August 31, 2025.
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