Did Neil Armstrong lie about the origins of his ‘one small step’ speech? And did  he still fluff his lines?

By James Nye

PUBLISHED:17:50 GMT, 31  December 2012| UPDATED:17:08 GMT, 1 January 2013

A new documentary has cast doubt on Neil  Armstrong's claims that he came up with his iconic 'one small step' line hours  after touching down on the surface of the moon.

The first man on the moon had stubbornly  maintained up until his death in September that his historic words were  unplanned, but a recent interview with his brother claims that he thought up the  famous speech months before the July 1969, Apollo mission - and that the phrase  he planned to utter did include an 'a'.

Hundreds of millions around the world heard  the NASA astronaut say, 'That's one small step for man, one giant leap for  mankind', but Armstrong insisted that he said 'a man' but that the 'a' was not  heard because of static.

In a rare interview three months  after the  NASA pioneers death, his brother, Dean, recalled that Neil  showed him a written  version of the speech months before the Apollo 11  launch, clearly stating,  'that's one small step for a man, one giant  leap for mankind.'

This runs contrary to Armstrong's own public  pronouncements that he decided  on the iconic two lines after landing on the  moon - but does back up the twin theories that either a) Armstrong fluffed his  lines when he  lowered himself down the lunar module's ladder or b) static  covered the  sound of the 'a' as Armstrong maintained.

Nonetheless, the hundreds of millions who  watched the landings never heard the crucial 'a' in Armstrong's speech, which  created decades of debate over whether the first man on the moon actually said  what he claims he meant to.

In a new BBC documentary, Dean Armstrong  recalls how his brother handed him a small piece of paper with the legendary and  controversial words on while they were playing a game of Risk.

'He says, 'What do you think about that?'  recalled Dean Armstrong in the film, 'Neil Armstrong: First Man on the  Moon.'

'I said 'fabulous'. He said 'I thought you  might like that, but I wanted you to read it.'

The history of one of the most repeated and  famous phrases in the world has long been shrouded in an element of doubt and  controversy.

In one of the definitive biographies of the  Apollo moon effort, 'A Man on the Moon', author Andrew Chaikin wrote that as the  mission launch neared, Neil Armstrong was bombarded with suggestions for what he  should say if the crew successfully made it to the moon - which included  passages from the Bible and Shakespeare.

FULL STORY: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2255346/Did-Neil-Arm...