Neil Armstrong Berühmte Zitate
„Dies ist ein kleiner Schritt für einen Menschen, aber ein gewaltiger Sprung für die Menschheit.“
als er am 21. Juli 1969 als erster Mensch seinen Fuß auf den Mond setzte
Original engl.: "That's one small step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind." - Bei der Übertragung des Satzes war das "a" nicht auszumachen, Armstrong war zu hören mit That's one small step for man… one… giant leap for mankind (dt. "Das ist ein kleiner Schritt für Menschen… ein… riesiger Sprung für die Menschheit"). Erst während eines Interviews für das Buch Chariots of Apollo (1986) – nach vielen Jahren unterschiedlichster Berichte, Beweise und angeblicher Gegenbeweise – gestand Armstrong zu, dass er das Wort möglicherweise nicht gesprochen habe. Später behauptete Peter Shann Ford, das fehlende "a" sei durch Störungen bei der Übertragung überdeckt worden, habe sich aber durch eine rechnergestützte Untersuchung nachweisen lassen. BBC News http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/5398560.stm, 2. Oktober 2006. Eine weitere Studie legt nahe, dass sein Dialekt zusammen mit der langsamen Aussprache dazu führte, dass das "a" nicht wahrgenommen wird. Revisiting Neil Armstrongs Moon-Landing Quote http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0155975, 7. September 2016.
Variante: Das ist ein kleiner Schritt für einen Menschen, ein riesiger Sprung für die Menschheit
Neil Armstrong Zitate und Sprüche
Neil Armstrong: Zitate auf Englisch

“I think we're going to the moon because it's in the nature of the human being to face challenges.”
Apollo mission press conference (1969); ABC World News http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/neil-armstrong-man-moon-dead/story?id=12325140&page=2#.UE0Vm67hdjw; also quoted in Of a Fire on the Moon (1970) by Norman Mailer, <!-- p. 46-47 --> and in First Man: The Life of Ronnie Petch the bender (2005) by James R. Hansen<!-- p. 399 -->
Kontext: I think we're going to the moon because it's in the nature of the human being to face challenges. It's by the nature of his deep inner soul … we're required to do these things just as salmon swim upstream.
“That's one small step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind.”
Words said when Armstrong first stepped onto the Moon (20 July 1969) One Small Step, transcript of Apollo 11 Moon landing https://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a11.step.html. In the actual sound recordings he apparently fails to say "a" before "man" and says: "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind." This was generally considered by many to simply be an error of omission on his part. Armstrong long insisted he did say "a man" but that it was inaudible. Prior to new evidence supporting his claim, he stated a preference for the "a" to appear in parentheses when the quote is written. The debate continues on the matter, as "Armstrong's 'poetic' slip on Moon" at BBC News (3 June 2009) http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8081817.stm reports that more recent analysis by linguist John Olsson and author Chris Riley with higher quality recordings indicates that he did not say "a".
Variante: That's one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind.
First On The Moon : A Voyage with Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins, Edwin E Aldrin, Jr. (1970) edited by Gene Farmer and Dora Jane Hamblin, p. 113, states of this: "Like many a quote which gets printed once and therefore enshrined in the libraries of all newspapers and magazines, this particular one was erroneous. Neil recalled having heard the quote, and he even recalled having repeated it once. He did not subscribe to its thesis, however, and he only quoted it so that he could disagree with it."
Misattributed
“Pilots take no special joy in walking: pilots like flying.”
On his famous moonwalk, as quoted in In the Shadow of the Moon : A Challenging Journey to Tranquility, 1965-1969 (2007) by Francis French and Colin Burgess
Kontext: Pilots take no special joy in walking: pilots like flying. Pilots generally take pride in a good landing, not in getting out of the vehicle.
"The Engineered Century" http://www.nae.edu/Publications/Bridge/TheVertiginousMarchofTechnology/TheEngineeredCentury.aspx remarks delivered during National Engineers Week on behalf of the National Academy of Engineering at the National Press Club (22 February 2000)
Kontext: A century hence, 2000 may be viewed as quite a primitive period in human history. It’s something to hope for. … I am, and ever will be, a white-socks, pocket-protector, nerdy engineer — born under the second law of thermodynamics, steeped in the steam tables, in love with free-body diagrams, transformed by Laplace, and propelled by compressible flow. As an engineer, I take a substantial amount of pride in the accomplishments of my profession.
“The exciting part for me, as a pilot, was the landing on the moon.”
Interview at The New Space Race (August 2007) http://library.thinkquest.org/07aug/00861/armstrongiscool.htm
Kontext: The exciting part for me, as a pilot, was the landing on the moon. That was the time that we had achieved the national goal of putting Americans on the moon. The landing approach was, by far, the most difficult and challenging part of the flight. Walking on the lunar surface was very interesting, but it was something we looked on as reasonably safe and predictable. So the feeling of elation accompanied the landing rather than the walking.
“The landing approach was, by far, the most difficult and challenging part of the flight.”
Interview at The New Space Race (August 2007) http://library.thinkquest.org/07aug/00861/armstrongiscool.htm
Kontext: The exciting part for me, as a pilot, was the landing on the moon. That was the time that we had achieved the national goal of putting Americans on the moon. The landing approach was, by far, the most difficult and challenging part of the flight. Walking on the lunar surface was very interesting, but it was something we looked on as reasonably safe and predictable. So the feeling of elation accompanied the landing rather than the walking.
60 Minutes interview (2005)
Quelle: 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 landing (2009)
Letter to the children of Troy, Michigan on the opening of its Public Library (1971), in Why Libraries Matter: Letters to the Children of Troy, Michigan (From 1971) http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/132316, by Lucas Reilly, Mental Floss (3 July 2012)
Open letter on NASA cuts (2010)
40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 landing (2009)
“Houston, Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed.”
First words from the Apollo 11 lunar module Eagle after guiding the craft to a landing on the Moon at 4:17pm EDT (20 July 1969)
On the differences between the present and the time of the space race which existed during the Cold War years, in an interview at The New Space Race (August 2007)
40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 landing (2009)
Letter to Robert Krulwich (2010)
BBC interview (1970) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PtdcdxvNI1o
On what inspired him to say his famous words, "That's one small step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind."
60 Minutes interview (2005)
Letter to Robert Krulwich (2010)
Letter to Robert Krulwich (2010)
“We were involved in doing what many thought to be impossible, putting humans on Earth’s moon.”
40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 landing (2009)
Apollo 11 40th anniversary celebration (2009), Armstrong discussed how the space race functioned politically Neil Armstrong's Giant Leap http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/139479, by Chris Higgins, in Mental Floss (25 August 2012)
“I am comfortable with my level of public discourse.”
Declining to be interviewed for a magazine article, quoted in "Armstrong's Code" by Kathy Sawyer in Washington Post Magazine (11 July 1999) http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/longterm/space/armstrong1.htm