"That's one small step for a man" "for man"

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Neil Armstrong claimed to have said "That's one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind." But in the recording it clearly sounds like "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind." which is a contradiction because "man" and "mankind" mean the same thing in this context.

It was claimed that static obscured the "a" before "man", but if that is the case, why isn't there any pause between "for" and "man"?

How often does the article end up as an unstressed schwa? If he said it as 'fora' rather than as a distinct stressed syllable 'for a' there wouldn't be much of a pause.

Maybe he was so excited at landing on the Moon that his diction was slightly off? Happens to me sometimes when I'm excited. And it's probably normal and helpful to correct sayings when repeating them. I've also heard it said that when a person recalls something they've heard, the recalled version has often been unconsciously modified so as to be more coherent and logical than the original version, as if we remember the sense of what was said rather than the exact words, and then put the idea back into words again when we recall it.

I always figured “man” has two meanings depending on context. In this case since “man” in this context is placed in comparison to mankind the first man is intended to mean “me, this man” and the man in “mankind” is intended to mean “humans”.

Also the radio signal from the moon was more than a bit iffy. Maybe he said “a man” and you only hear “man” but I doubt that. The press was very interested in the first man on the moon and the Government was too. I am sure the words were written out for Neil and he said exactly what was written. They were probably sent to the press in a written press release just after if not before the event. The sub text is “This is easy for this American Man, but hard for anyone else in the world- take that Russia, we are Number One of all Mankind. We just Leapfrogged You.”

There is a reason USA spent all that money and it wasn’t just for unity and brotherhood.

The Missile Gap was no joke since missiles could carry nuclear warheads.

I was told by someone with many NASA ties about thirty years ago that Armstrong's saying was scripted but he flubbed it and that the tapes were edited to make it come out the way it was scripted.

He made it sound like they replaced the entire line, but it makes more sense if they just inserted an 'a' instead.

There is a pause between "one" and "giant leap for mankind." No pause at all between "for" and "man".

Meh. I'm still miffed that NASA failed to use the Oxford Comma in one of its earliest reports.

Man, that Armstrong business was just so weird.

Folks like me..old enough to have watched the moon landing live on TV have...been facepalming about it for over half of a century.

It made no sense the way we all heard it. He said that he flubbed the line and and meant to say that "a" before "man", and others say the "a" got muffled in the audio.

Whatever.

Maybe the line that SHOULD live on in history is what preceded it by a few seconds. "This is Tranquility Base. The Eagle has landed."

Just be glad that it wasn't Justin Trudeau who landed on the moon. "It's one small step for people, one giant leap for peoplekind."

Something that someone said about this in another forum.

This is why NASA never sent females to the moon; in fear of inducing immediate "man a" pause on contact with the lunar surface...