One Small Step For A Man
Some hours after the EAGLE had landed, Armstrong emerged from the Lunar Module and began descending the short nine-step ladder. When he reached the second step from the bottom, he pulled a D-ring that opened a compartment on the outside of the Lunar Module, and deployed a television camera. It began to photograph him as he reached the last step. Looking down at the soil, Armstrong reported, “The surface appears to be very, very, fine grained… it’s almost like powder.”
As Armstrong’s foot touched the lunar soil, he exclaimed, “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.”
Later, NASA rewrote the statement to read: “That’s one small step for a man…”, supplying the article that had either been omitted by Armstrong or had got swallowed up in transmission. Armstrong was breathing hard. He was excited, and that was but natural. He was standing on a world on which no other man had ever set foot.
Soon, Aldrin joined Armstrong on the lunar surface.
“Beautiful, beautiful,” he reported, while taking a few ungainly steps in one-sixth gravity, “magnificent desolation.” The two men photographed the stainless steel plaque on a part of the landing craft that was to be left behind. It read:
“Here men from the planet Earth set foot on the Moon July 1969. We came in peace for all mankind.”
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