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 by several remarks, usual com traffic between him, 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 casual 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.
On July 5, 1995 (in Tampa Bay, FL) while answering questions following a speech, a reporter brought up the 26 year old question to Armstrong. This time he finally responded. Mr. Gorsky had finally died and so Neil Armstrong felt he could answer the question.
When he was a kid, he was playing baseball with a friend in the backyard. His friend hit a fly ball which landed in the front of his neighbor’s bedroom windows.
His neighbors were Mr. & Mrs. Gorsky. As he leaned down to pick up the ball, young Armstrong heard Mrs. Gorsky shouting at Mr. Gorsky, “Oral sex! You want oral sex?! You’ll get oral sex when the kid next door walks on the moon!”
Well, I think Mr. Gorsky was happy to see Neil happily walking on the Moon!
If it ain’t true, it should be!!
Yep… make your words nice & sweet, cause tomorrow they may be the words…
Wish someone could fact check this tale;
I read the unsanitized version on line many years ago, & always have been looking for the flight transcripts, just to see if Mr. Gorsky got honorable mention anywhere
This was a joke originally attributed to Buddy Hackett. Back in the early days of the internet, it circulated around the old space.history newsgroup and was debunked by the real NASA historians who hung out there. If you read the complete Apollo Lunar Surface Journal (google it) which has complete transcripts of all voice coms (public and back-channel) from the moon, you see he never made the comment. Fantastic story though, and one I often repeat myself when a bunch of us begin yacking about space over beers.