Tuesday, March 16, 2010

Moon Landing

I think about the first moon landing quite a bit. Okay, not really, but I'm thinking about it right now. Because landing on the moon was that one thing that gave every complainer the right to say "hey, they could put a man on the moon, but they can't find a way to floss my teeth without bits of corn shooting out everywhere???" The moon landing was an epic event, the greatest thing to happen in 1969, narrowly beating out the release of Abbey Road and the start of the fun-filled Nixon years.

As it turns out, Neil Armstrong's first words on the moon were flubbed. He was supposed to say "that's one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind" but had mistakenly left out the word "a" before "man" so it sounded like he meant that "man" and "mankind" were different things entirely. The world for decades assumed that Armstrong was talking in some alien code, perhaps picked up during those lonely hours in space where he went nuts and was claimed by the pod people. (This is why we don't see Neil Armstrong on talk shows any more. The pod people are very careful about that).

Had I been that first astronaut on the moon, I would have said something like "hey, here I am on the moon....wow, look I can see Earth! And I left my house light on, crap!" or "sure is lonely on this moon...hey look what's coming over that ridge, a bunch of big boobed space hookers! Turn the camera off, Mrs. Armstrong may be watching!"

I mean really, first words on the moon you'd think he'd try and make it special.

2 comments:

  1. If you're not a fan of Armstrong, take a gander at what Apollo 12 commander Pete Conrad said (according to Wikipedia): "When Conrad, who was somewhat shorter than Neil Armstrong, stepped onto the lunar surface, his first words were 'Whoopie! Man, that may have been a small one for Neil, but that's a long one for me.' "

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  2. Foggy--that's an improvement! Even better would have been if he tripped and fell onto the moon, and said "I hope they invent OHSA in five years".

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