What are neil armstrong's famous words?

The world heard "one small step for man," with no article. After the flight, Armstrong explained that his intention had been to say "for a man" — one man, as opposed to mankind — and that he believed he had said it, but no convincing "a" ever showed up in the recordings. A waveform analysis published in 2006 claimed to have found it; professional audio studios did not back up the conclusion. That's why the annotated edition of the Apollo Lunar Surface Journal writes "for (a) man," leaving the article in parentheses rather than deciding for it.

Armstrong set foot on the regolith at 02:56:15 UT on July 21, 1969, already the early hours in Europe. NASA's original transcript placed the line at 109:24:48 mission elapsed time, a mark the annotated edition considers inconsistent with the preceding times: the analysis moves the start of the line back to roughly 109:24:23.

The famous quote wasn't a closing line but the opening of a technical report. At 109:24:48, Armstrong was describing the ground beneath his boots: fine and powdery, able to be scuffed up with the toe of his boot, clinging in thin layers to the sole and sides of his boots like powdered charcoal. That second line, far less quoted, was the one geologists and engineers were waiting for: no one knew for certain how the regolith would behave under the weight of a suited person, and those first seconds of description were worth more than any later measurement.