Good luck, Mr. Gorsky

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From the too good to be true, but too good not to pass on dept.

After Neil Armstrong took his giant leap for mankind, there was the usual COM traffic between him, the other astronauts, and Mission Control before Armstrong paused, and said, “Good luck, Mr. Gorsky.”

Capcom assumed this to be a casual remark about a rival — perhaps a Soviet Cosmonaut. But there was no Gorsky in either the Russian or American space programs.

In the following months and years Armstrong was asked repeatedly what he meant, but he always respectfully declined. Then in 1995, in Tampa Bay, FL, when a reporter brought up the 26-year-old question, at long last Armstrong replied: the Gorskys had both died, so he felt he could answer.

Armstrong grew up in Wapakoneta, Ohio, next door to a Mr. and Mrs. Gorsky. As a boy, Neil used to play baseball with his brother Dean in their back yard. One day, Dean hit one over the fence. Neil hopped over the fence to retrieve the ball, which lay in a flower bed below the Gorskys’ bedroom window.

As he bent down to pick it up, Neil heard Mrs. Gorsky shout, “Blow job? Blow job you want? I’ll give you a blowjob when that kid next door walks on the moon!”

See also

• Space pen