Tag Archives: NASA

While Times Online claims Neil Armstrong’s planned utterance ("One small step…" etc.) was ungrammatical–and sci fi writer Arthur C. Clarke (writing in 1986) agreed–until an Australian computer expert recently uncovered the missing article. Well, every Texas schoolboy knows the REALLY important matter was the First Word from the lunar surface, not those planned-in-advance words.

That first word? "Houston," as in Armstrong reporting the landing by saying "Houston, Tranquillity base here…" etc. I used to have a colorful poster of an orbiting city made up by the Houston chamber of commerce crowing about it. As a paid scribe, I even once examined the official transcript to confirm it.

Comes Wikipedia claiming the first words were those of Buzz Aldrin: "The first words spoken from the surface were Aldrin’s, who reported ‘Contact Light’ as the Eagle’s landing probe touched the moon."

Harrumph. This is why, as we so often hear, Wikipedia’s encyclopedic veracity is questionable at best.