jonathan wrote:
"giveitawhirl2008" wrote in message
...
Are you old enough to have watched the first Moon landing, live? (BTW
- Neil Armstrong apparently did NOT blow his lines. He said "One small
step for a man, One giant leap for Mankind." The "a" in "for a man"
did not come through due to the relatively poor quality of interworld
communications in 1969.)

Nah, his pause shortly after the missing word shows a consciousness of
guilt. He botched the line, plain and simple. Listen to it again, the pause
shows he knows he botched it. And the line would normally read
without any pause betwen 'for' and 'a'. So the excuse that a pause
caused the voice activated communication system doesn't ring true.

I prefer to look at it in the broader perspective.

It was indeed one small step for humans, but it was a huge step for
'mankind', which includes all of the lifeforms which participated in our
creation, and which we utterly depend upon for our continued survival.

The fact that we are now trying our best to destroy all other lifeforms
besides ourselves, no matter how high or low, and thus ourselves, makes
his actually philosophically correct statement all the more piquant.