What did Neil Armstrong really say when he took his first step on the moon? Millions on Earth who
listened to him on TV or radio heard this: “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.”But
after returning from space,Armstrong said that wasn’t what he had planned to say. He said there was a lost
word in his famous one-liner from the moon: “That’s one small step for ‘a’ man.” It’s just that people didn’t
hear it.During a 30th anniversary gathering in 1999, the Apollo 11 commander acknowledged that he didn’t
hear himself say it either when he listened to the transmission from the 1969 moon landing. “The ‘a’ was
intended,”Armstrong said. “I thought I said it. I can’t hear it when I listen on the radio reception here on
Earth,
so I’ll be happy if you just put it in parentheses.” While it seems no one heard the “a,” some research backs Armstrong. In 2006, a computer analysis of
sound waves found evidence that Armstrong said what he said he said. NASA has also stood by the
moonwalker.Armstrong, who died in 2012 at age 82, said he came up with the statement himself. In a 2001
NASA oral history, he said NASA discouraged coaching astronauts, a position reflected in a NASA memo. It
cited how “the truest emotion ... is what the explorer feels within himself.” “I thought about it after landing,”
Armstrong said about his famous line. “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.”
【題組】48. What can be inferred from the passage?
(A) NASA taught Armstrong what do say before he landed on the moon.
(B) Astronauts on the Apollo 11 mission did not have much to do on the moon.
(C) NASA did believe that one word was missing from Armstrong’s one-liner.
(D) The transmission from space in 1969 was cut off immediately after Armstrong landed.