Daily Grind

Good Luck Mr Gorsky

EDIT: This story was proven to be untrue on multiple websites including snopes.com, truthorfiction.com and urbanlegends.about.com. I guess that will teach me for slacking off on research.

It’s a nifty story, but not true. Neil Armstrong denies it and NASA transcripts do not include any record that Neil Armstrong made a reference to a Mr. Gorsky during his lunar excursion. NASA regards the story to as a joke.

- truthorfiction.com

On July 20, 1969, as commander of the Apollo 11 Lunar Module, Neil Armstrong was the first person to set foot on the moon. His first words after stepping on the moon, “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind,” were televised to earth and heard by millions.

But just before he reentered the lander, he made the enigmatic remark “Good Luck, Mr Gorksky.”

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.

Only July 5, 1995, in Tampa Bay, Florida, 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 died, so Neil felt he could answer the question.

In 1983 when he was a kid in a small Midwest town, he was playing baseball with a friend in the backyard. His friend hit the ball, which landed in his neighbour’s yard by the bedroom windows.

His neighbours were Mr and Mrs Gorsky. As he leaned down to pick up the ball, young Armstrong heard Mrs Gorsky shouting at Mr Gorsky.

“Sex! You want sex!? You’ll get sex when the kid next door walks on the moon!”

True story.

Tags: apollo 11, explained, false, fiction, hoax, joke, moon landing, mr gorsky, myth, NASA, Neil Armstrong, rumour, untrue, urban legend