Did You Know.?

NASA has had the original footage of Neil Armstrong's first steps on the moon digitally enhanced. As he descended from the Lunar Module, Armstrong said his now-famous words: That's one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind. Until 2006, there was much discussion whether Armstrong actually said: That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.

Then, an Australian computer programmer, Peter Shann Ford, ran a soundwave analysis (of Armstrong's transmission) and found something really interesting - a wave, lasting 35 milliseconds, which was too quick to be heard. Ford concluded it was the missing "a" (which Armstrong had always maintained he'd said).

Armstrong himself, and experts at the Smithsonian, examined the evidence and found it convincing.  On NASA's web site, one finds that version of the quote.

How did it come about?  In his 2001 NASA oral history, Armstrong answers that question: I thought about it after landing, and because we had a lot of other things to do, it was not something that I really concentrated on, but just something that was kind of passing around subliminally or in the background. But it, you know, was a pretty simple statement, talking about stepping off something. Why, it wasn’t a very complex thing. It was what it was.