*Pic: The Moon landing, as seen on televisions in Australia in 1969, at the moment Neil Armstrong stepped onto the lunar surface. ~ NASA image.
Ask many people if they remember the Moon landing, and they will tell you, “I wasn’t born yet.”
As each year goes by, fewer remain who remember that moment.
It was my first year at work after high school, when we downed tools and went to the next business along the street to see the event on TV.
Such memories linger on, where the people of Earth heard Armstrong declare from the Moon ~ “That’s one small step for man: one giant leap for mankind.”
As we look toward the Moon landing anniversary on 20 July, which for eastern Australia was 12.56pm on 21 July 1969, we might reflect on an odd controversy over exactly what Neil Armstrong said, with claims that there is an “a” in there. [1]
Was this simply a fox hunt for an illusive “a” that wasn’t really there?
It’s all a bit like the mythical Tasmanian fox, that never dared to show its nose beyond a news beat-up. [2]
Fox hunting with the hounds was a popular tradition in merry old England, and as Tasmania has often been likened to England, it’s a wonder that foxes were never introduced to the island for the sport of the gentry.
But, an expensive fox hunt in recent years in Tasmania has found no trace of a fox in a hedge, on a hill, under any beds, or lurking near a chicken coop.
Considering the rabbit plague in early years, after the introduction of bunnies, foxes would have been quite fat and easy hunting.
When the English novelist Anthony Trollope visited Tasmania in the 1870s, he observed that the plague of rabbits around Campbell Town had a very severe impact on agricultural productivity.
Wedgetail eagles can now be seen hovering over the hedges of our land in Ross, ready to swoop on a rabbit for lunch.
Those foxes of the sky are so magnificent to see, gliding on the wing above the hill like kites on a breeze.
An eagle of another kind once landed on the Moon, delivering explorers from Earth onto a new world, with a statement to remember ~ “The Eagle has landed.” [3]
It is odd how this momentous event in human history led to a fox hunt for a missing “a”, but such affairs are in the nature of human politics.
The whole world heard Neil Armstrong declare from the Sea of Tranquillity ~ “That’s one small step for man: one giant leap for mankind.” [4]
People became a little puzzled when an “a” began to appear in the historic record, turning Armstrong’s lunar statement into ~ “That’s one small step for a man: one giant leap for mankind.”
When the most sensitive sound equipment available dissected the statement from the Moon in 2009, no “a” could be found. [5]
So what was going on?
During the years following the Moon landing, forces had been gathering to make war on the English language.
As equality was trumpeted on the battlements, the word “man” was found wanting and cut down from its original meaning as a word for all people, to a name for only half the human population.
The word “man” has an ancient meaning, used by the Vikings as a word for the person of a house, man or woman, and going back 5000 years into ancient Sanskrit, where Manu is the first man-woman.
The ancient Aryan tribes who spoke Sanskrit migrated from the steppes of Russia into India, Iran and Europe.
Sanskrit became the root of a whole tree of languages, known as Indo-European, with English found as a branch on that tree.
The word “man” acquired two meanings as Anglo-Saxon and Old Norse, the tongue of the Vikings, merged into Old English and then into modern English, serving as a word for the male and also as a name for all people.
Those leading the war on “man” were mainly in academia, in universities, shaping the mind of a new generation and few people on Earth knew there was a war on “man” until “man” had been trampled on the field of battle.
There was certainly no democratic process in play, to consider why do it, or any alternative.
Armstrong appeared at many events and may have come under scrutiny from those pushing to suppress the ancient meaning of the word “man” as a word for the human family, which may explain the hunt to find an “a” if an “a” could be found.
As a consequence of the word war, at first the Moon statement was changed to include an “a”, but when no “a” could be found, the appeasement version became ~ “That’s one small step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind.”
The truth is, no “a” can be found and so the correct statement from history, which the World heard in 1969 from the Moon, is ~ “That’s one small step for man: one giant leap for mankind.”
There may have been no fox hunt for an illusive “a” if a new word had been coined for the male, such as “heman”.
Other words might have followed suit, such as “male” going to “hemale” to gain equality with female.
When I became aware of the fierce campaign against the word “man”, I wrote a little article in the 1990s calling for the preservation of the word “man” in its ancient meaning as a name for all people.
This is a culture matter, not a prisoner of war to be secretly executed by a firing squad of academics, because they can get away with the act.
If the simple addition of “he” to “man”, making “heman”, had been made to the English language, then many words in their ancient meaning would have stayed in use, instead of shrinking the language.
The simple term “mankind” for instance, is a straight-talking word for all people.
But, wielding power was more relevant in the war on “man”, and so the English language was cling-wrapped.
The time may come when people will look at the ancient history of the word “man” and decide that they have been pillaged.
To go forward, the decision may one day be made to introduce a new word for the male, such as “heman”, and allow the return of words like “actress”.
The blindfold might then be taken off the language prisoner and the firing squad sent back to their ivory barracks.
It is unfortunate that such a great event in human history should be muddied by the hunt for the foxy “a” that wasn’t there.
But we can know when we look up at the Moon, that explorers from Earth have been there.
Anyone wishing to honour the greatest event in human exploration, can remember the Moon landing at the moment it happened in their time zone, and there are 24 moments around the World as the Earth turns over two calendar days.
Puzzling over how best to remember the Moon landing by a campfire beneath the stars in 2007, I wondered about remembering the moment globally, as it happened in 1969.
Attempts to have a remembrance day every year had not worked, though this had been proposed by many.
When there nearly was a Moon day for July, it was moved to October 4th and became World Space Week.
October 4th 1957 is the day the first rocket sailed into space, with Sputnik launching the Space Age.
Sputnik going “beep – beep – beep” overhead also terrified every American and the free World in many other lands, when it was realised that Russia had gained the ability to drop a bomb on Washington or Sydney from space.
Sadly, Sputnik also marks the birth of the intercontinental balistic missile, the ICBM.
NASA remembers the Moon landing every five years, but there was no annual US or World event.
Observing these difficulties, with the flickering flames of the camp fire and dancing stars above, the idea of remembering the moment came to mind.
I dubbed this idea First Step, or FirstStep, for our first actual step beyond Earth.
The Moon landing was the first really global event that people in all nations around the World stopped to watch, or hear on the radio.
For one moment in time the people of Earth were united in a great event as it happened.
I wondered if FirstStep could be an event every year that unites the whole World in a moment of reflection.
FirstStep could also be a force for peace, when we know that the first explorers from Earth to reach the Moon left a plaque there that says ~ “We came in peace for all mankind.”
As we step forward on Earth, into future time and among the stars, we can also look forward in peace for all mankind.
In the age of robots, when exploration craft from Earth are getting smarter every year, the Moon landing may turn out to be the last great feat of human exploration.
In the future that we are sailing into, intelligent robots will be flying out ahead of human explorers and telling us what they find on distant planets and among new stars.
So those haunting words from the Moon may turn out to be far more important to us than ever, as we find new ways to co-exist with smart machines.
After the Moon moment, there could be a Giant Leap discussion, wondering about the next great advancement in space exploration, and whether there will be a human on the frontier to tell the tale, or will the explorer always be a smart machine now, able to travel faster and go further without the need for air, water or food.
After a long hibernation in deep space, a smart machine arriving at a new star would feast on stellar energy and get to work exploring and reporting back to Earth, able to set up robot factories and make more machines to sail on to other stars.
We can benefit from the abilities of our creations, which could include a stellar web of connected machines to work on tricky problems, such as how to travel faster in space, or find wormholes for swift transit from star to star, should they exist.
Will quantum entanglement, where a subatomic particle can be in two places at once, even on opposite sides of the Universe, lead to instant communications between quantum computers?
All we would have to do is set up the communications base and start talking.
If that is the reality of the Universe we are in, then future computing will become extremely powerful, drawing on the energy of each star to connect a stellar mind the size of a galaxy.
There are 100 billion stars in the Milky Way.
What a mind that would become.
Why are we still messing around on Earth, when there is a galaxy of stars out there, waiting for any possibility?
It is high time we saddled the horses and went off fox hunting among the stars.
Who knows what we will find.
Anyone can dream about a future among the stars.
In our age, anyone can now directly participate in making a stellar future happen.
Where once the whole World stopped to hear those haunting words from the Moon, now everyone can be part of the adventure, where anything becomes possible.
All who wish to keep the Earth safe, can look to that too.
We can reach for the stars and recall ~ “That’s one small step for man: one giant leap for mankind.” ~ remembering the Moon landing and our first step beyond Earth.
Remember 12.56pm on the 21st of July in eastern Australia and on the hour around the Earth over 24 hours.
It was through the Parkes radio telescope in eastern Australia that the news was relayed from the Moon to the people of Earth. [6]
The Moon landing is an important event for Australia in the history of space exploration.
This year Space Pioneers will be celebrating their first FirstStep event in Tasmania, connecting with friends globally in Second Life, as well as in Ross.
The first FirstStep event happened in the Tasmanian Space Centre in the old General Store on Rosny Hill at 12.56pm 21 July 2007.
A display was made for the day including newscuttings from the week of the Moon landing in 1969.
The Tasmanian Space Centre was located in the old General Store on Rosny Hill in Tasmania in 2007, as part of Kim Peart’s art gallery, Vandemonian Art. Vandemonian is a name for denizens of or from Van Diemen’s Land, which was the name of Tasmania until 1853.
REFERENCE ~
[1] Apollo Moon Landing
CSIRO
http://www.csiro.au/en/Research/Astronomy/Spacecraft-tracking-and-space-science/Apollo-11-Moon-landing
[2] Tasmania’s fox hunt was worth it, even if there were no foxes
Christopher Johnson & Menna Jones, 24 March 2015, The Conversation
https://theconversation.com/tasmanias-fox-hunt-was-worth-it-even-if-there-were-no-foxes-34045
[3] The Eagle Has Landed
NASA film
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a3hZ1TTCyXI
[4] First Moon Landing 1969
NASA film
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RMINSD7MmT4
[5] ‘That’s one small step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind.’
One Small Step, transcript of Apollo 11 moon landing
Words said when Armstrong first stepped onto the moon (20 July 1969). 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. In September 2006 evidence based on new analysis of the recordings conducted by Peter Shann Ford, a computer programmer based in Sydney, Australia, whose company Control Bionics helps physically handicapped people to use their own nerve impulses to communicate through computers, indicated that Armstrong had said the missing “a.” This information was presented to Armstrong and NASA on 28 September 2006 and reported in the Houston Chronicle (30 September 2006). The debate continues on the matter, as “Armstrong’s ‘poetic’ slip on Moon” at BBC News (3 June 2009) reports that more recent analysis by linguist John Olsson and author Chris Riley with higher quality recordings indicates that he did not say “a”.
Wikipedia
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Neil_Armstrong
[6] On Eagles Wings
The Parkes Observatory’s Support of the Apollo 11 Mission
http://www.parkes.atnf.csiro.au/news_events/apollo11/
Moon Landing film ~
ABOUT KIM PEART
*Kim Peart was raised in Howrah from 1952, when there were farms there. Finding adventure in Scouts and Army Cadets, Kim later pursued art and founded a Viking Society in Tasmania in 1975, seeking history and culture in the spirit of adventure. In 1976 Kim saw an ad for space settlement and signed up to be a space development advocate. Environmental matters came later and figuring out how we can live in harmony with Nature. Earth matters and space issues merged in 2006 when Kim wrote his document ~ Creating A Solar Civilization ~ exploring how we can only achieve a sustainable human presence on Earth, by building a sustainable industrial presence beyond Earth. Kim now lives in Ross with his wife, Jennifer, where an interest is taken in the Ross Bridge and other history, as well as a local space project on our land and using the virtual worlds to connect globally with like-minded people, to plan local action toward creating a celestial future and winning back a safe Earth. Kim is the director of Space Pioneers and may be contacted about art, Vikings, Tasmanian history, Earth care, building a stronger Australia, sending poverty into history, space settlement, stellar exploration and virtual world technologies ~ [email protected] ~ In 2014 Kim attended the first Silicon Valley Virtual Reality conference, where he met the pioneers of a new age of the Internet. The adventure has only just begun.
