23 May 2013
This type of debunking is badly needed, although I don’t know how good the research team at Mental Floss is. They do get the Neil Armstrong explanation wrong. (He did indeed intend to say “a small step for a man,” but he actually said, “a small step for man.” It wasn’t a transmission problem that masked the “a.” So all those people who have been “misquoting” him have actually been correct. Armstrong claimed that it was a transmission problem for a while, but eventually admitted he screwed up the statement. Not that anyone blames him. It’s amazing that in all the excitement he didn’t make any bigger mistakes. Here’s The Onion’s take on the historic moment (NSFW).)
