Edward Potter wrote:
But hey, he really didn't think that one up himself, did he?
Well, the sources, as usual, vary on that:
A retired engineer from Berkshire, Gary Peach, says that it was he who came up with the line, "One small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind." Neil Armstrong is on record as saying that he "thought about it after landing" on the Moon.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/christopherhowse/5880418/Moon-landings-Thats-one-small-quotation-for-a-man.-.-..html# (the article is quite entertaining in itself...)
But then we have:
But he knew what he said. "There must be an 'a', " Mr. Armstrong says of the event in the 1986 book Chariots for Apollo. "I rehearsed it that way. I meant it that way. And I'm sure I said it that way."
Unless he meant he rehearsed it just before saying it...
This discussion is also interesting:
I've done a fair amount of reading on the Apollo project, and I've met Armstrong, Aldrin, and Collins. Although I don't have a cite at hand (and I'm too tired at the moment to go through a couple of books that might discuss the quesion), I can say with certainty that I've never heard anything to suggest that Armstrong didn't come up with the statement himself. And I feel fairly certain that if there had been such an allegation, I would have heard about it and remembered it.
I may not be a terribly authoritative source, but I am quite confident that Armstrong is the author. Furthermore I seem to recall that he didn't even tell anyone at NASA what he was going to say in advance.
...
Oh, yeah, just remembered this: Pete Conrad got in a debate with a reporter over whether or not Neil got to pick his first words or not. To prove to the reporter that Neil did, in fact, get to say what he wanted to, Pete wrote down exactly what he was going to say when he landed on the Moon, passed it to the reporter and made a bet that he'd be able to say it. The reporter took the bet, and when Pete landed he said: That may have been a small step for Neil, but it's a long one for me!
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=278884