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Comment by jrflowers | Hacker News Reader

> On July 21, 1969, Neil Armstrong stepped off the ladder of his spacecraft and became the first human to walk on the Moon. The first words spoken by him on the Moon that day are still remembered.

>[img that misquotes Neil Armstrong]

is a hilarious way to start

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I believe Neil Armstrong said that is the correct quote, it just dropped the "a" in the transmission.

Until recently I believed that too. However, I came across some discussion which made me realize I was mixing up the sequence. The transmission interruption, which can be clearly heard, didn't happen at that point in the quote; it happened a moment later, after the word "man". The critical part of the quote seems to come through clear. It's more of a linguistic question about how "for a" and "for" may sound almost indistinguishable in Armstrong's accent.

I have a similar accent and we would say it like "furrah-man". For me, the "ah" becomes a lot weaker going into the "m", so I can easily see it.

I'm also intrigued by the idea that it was a flub which he realized instantly (if you listen to the recording):

... step for man <pause> (dammit) ... one giant leap...

There is a whole controversy and analysis about that particular syllable: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neil_Armstrong#First_Moon_walk

Also, the blog post in the submission omits a major detail: the on-orbit docking maneuvers for the CSM to mate with the LM. A minor detail is that the Saturn V's third stage performed TLI (trans-lunar injection) and it actually impacted the Moon. After this TLI, the LM and the CSM were flying free in space, with a bit of separation, and it was the CSM pilot who needed to turn 180° and nose-in to the LM in order to be in the proper configuration for the hypothetical Moon landing.

It was an unusual configuration for Apollo 13, to say the least, because of course they did not land on the Moon, but also because the "base/legs" part of the LM wouldn't be "left behind" on the lunar surface, so they sort of lugged it around awhile. I don't know the exact sequence of jettisoning that base, but they certainly relied on the LM "head" as a lifeboat and a source of additional life-support functions.

At one point they discussed jettisoning the landing stage of the LM, for less mass so that the PC+2 burn would get them home faster, but most of the batteries and O2 tanks on the LM were in the descent stage (4 of the 6 batteries, I don't remember the distribution of the tanks) so dropping the landing stage made their other problems even worse. The landing stage stayed attached to the ascent stage for the entire life of Odyssey, and was dumped into a deep trench in the Pacific Ocean because there was a nuclear RTG to power the ALSEP attached to one of the legs of the lander.

There is a whole controversy and analysis about that particular syllable

Oh FFS... this guy went to the Moon and all people can argue about is what he said? How far we've fallen...

Be glad people still believe anyone ever went to the moon at all. That may not be the case in a few more years.

Pretty soon it will be possible for tourists to visit the moon and see the litter we left with their own eyes.

In fact, job 1 needs to be building fences around the landing sites so people don't trample all over them.

We're still in the "millionaire celebrity ego-trip to nudge against the Karman line" stage of commercial space travel. "Pretty soon" is nowhere near a likely timeframe for crowds of tourists clomping around on the moon.

The moon is further away than you think. The Apollo mission architecture was a lot more feasible than others that have been considered. The current plan to use a Starship returns about the same payload with a much larger and taller vehicle that is inclined to tip over. You really want a landing pad.

Refueling from lunar materials might be possible but volatiles seem precious. The mission with that vehicle that makes the most sense to me is to land it with a full payload and use it for habitat, workshop, storage tanks or scrap metal.

Space tourism to a micro O’Neill colony in LEO decked out as a flashy space hotel seems more believable to me. I designed one that needs 15 Starship loads of LN2 for the atmosphere but that is fewer launches than they plan to put one Starship on the moon.

Funny thing, I bet by then authentic Armstrong poop (which comprises some of that litter) will be more valuable than moonrocks.

IIRC Armstrong said some years later that he had unintentionally left out the "a".

To be fair, they did not say they were remembered correctly.

Or who remembers them (not the person that made the image)

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