Armstrong

[WillyL]

When Apollo Mission Astronaut Neil Armstrong first walked on the moon, he not only gave his famous "One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind," statement but followed it up with several remarks to the other astronauts and Mission Control.

Just before he re-entered the lander, however, he made the enigmatic remark, "Good luck Mr. Gorsky." Many people at NASA thought it was a remark concerning some rival Soviet Cosmonaut.

However, upon checking, there was no Gorsky in either the Russian or American space programs. Over the years, many people questioned Armstrong as to what the "Good luck Mr. Gorsky" statement meant, but Armstrong always just smiled.

This past Monday, June 27, 2005 at the University of Tampa in Florida, while answering questions following a speech, a student brought up the 36-year-old question to Armstrong. This time he finally responded.

Armstrong explained, "When I was a kid, I was playing baseball [with a friend] in the backyard. He hit a fly ball that landed in the yard in front of my neighbor's bedroom windows. My neighbors were Mr. & Mrs. Gorsky. As I leaned down to pick up the ball, I heard Mrs. Gorsky shouting at her husband, "You want oral sex?! You'll get oral sex when the kid next door walks on the moon!"

At this remark, the audience - comprised primarily of college students - began laughing hysterically

[Crossy]

Oh that it were true

This whopper of a tale has been circulating for years via email and can be found on dozens of Web sites accompanied by the claim that it really happened. But it's false, as anyone can verify by perusing the official lunar landing transcript on NASA's Apollo 11 site (audio & video clips included) http://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a11/a11.step.html.

Sometimes attributed to stand-up comedian Buddy Hackett, "Good Luck, Mr. Gorsky" obviously came into this world as a joke, earning the status of urban legend over time through sheer repetition as a "true story." In spite of the ease with which this revisionist history of the Apollo lunar landing and moonwalk is debunked, it's so much fun to read and pass along that it will doubtless be with us for decades to come.