Today marks the 40th anniversary of the first lunar landing of Apollo 11. Of course, I wasn't born yet when the landing happened, but I'm sure it must have been a really exciting global event. Space exploration has not really progressed much beyond the moon (at least, as far as, manned flights are concerned). We're still a long way from Star Trek.
Buzz Aldrin was actually the first guy to do a moon walk -- not Neil Armstrong, or the recently deceased Michael Jackson. :) However, Neil Armstrong is more popularly known because of his quote "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind". So people more often attribute the first steps to him.
An article at the Inquirer today interestingly talks about how Armstrong claims he was misquoted. It seems that because of the poor radio signal between the earth and the moon during the live transmission, a word was lost. Armstrong claims the actual words that he said were: "That's one small step for (a) man, one giant leap for mankind". The 'a' got dropped off during transmission.
A recent soundwave analysis of the radio transmission by an Australian programmer found a wave lasting for 35 millisecond that can very well be the missing "a". The proof is convincing enough for the Smithsonian Institute space curator, and as far as NASA is concerned, they stand by whatever Armstrong claims he said.
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