CONTROVERSY: Neil Armstong always said that his famous line "One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind" was a spur of the moment statement. But in a new documentary, his brother Dean says that Neil wrote the words months before the Apollo mission and showed him, asking him what he thought of the quote.
Does it matter to you if he lied about it? Or perhaps he just didn't tell the whole truth?
Does it matter to you if he lied about it? Or perhaps he just didn't tell the whole truth?
Here's what Armstrong said on tape for his authorized biography "First Man":
"Once on the surface [after the landing] and realizing the moment was at hand, fortunately I had some hours to think about it after getting there. My own view was that it was a very simplistic statement: what can you say when you step off of something? Well, something about a step. It just sort of evolved during that period that I was doing the procedures of the practice takeoff and the EVA prep and all the other activities that were on our flight schedule at that time. I didn't think it was particularly important, but other people obviously did."
