This is also evidence - why fake a speech that was never made, and archive it?
First Moon landing: what Richard Nixon would have said had the mission failed
A speech prepared for US President Richard Nixon to read if the first Moon landing had ended in failure has been unearthed from archives.
By Murray Wardrop
Last Updated: 7:18AM BST 20 Apr 2009
As Neil Armstrong set foot on the Moon on July 21, 1969, his immortal words "One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind" became synonymous with the scale of the achievement.
However, in the event that astronauts Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin been stranded on the Moon, Nixon would have delivered a far more chilling address to the nation.
After calling their widows, he would have told the watching millions: "Fate has ordained that the men who went to the Moon to explore in peace will stay on the Moon to rest in peace.
"These brave men know there is no hope for their recovery but they also know that there is hope for mankind in their sacrifice.
"These two men are laying down their lives in mankind's most noble goal: the search for truth and understanding.
"They will be mourned by their families and friends; they will be mourned by their nation; they will be mourned by the people of the world; they will be mourned by a Mother Earth that dared send two of her sons into the unknown.
"In their exploration, they stirred the people of the world to feel as one; in their sacrifice, they bind more tightly the brotherhood of man."
The words are contained in a typed document entitled "In the event of Moon disaster" which was consigned to an archive until now – almost 40 years since the historic mission.
It is dated July 18, 1969 – two days before the landing was due – and was prepared by Nixon's speech writer, Bill Safire, and sent to White House chief of staff Harry Haldeman.
However, following the success of the mission, it was laid aside in Nixon's private papers in America's national archives.
It reveals that Nixon would have added: "In ancient days, men looked at stars and saw their heroes in the constellations.
"In modern times, we do much the same but our heroes are epic men of flesh and blood. Others will follow and surely find their way home. Man's search will not be denied but these men were the first and they will remain the foremost in our hearts."
In an allusion to Rupert Brooke's First World War poem The Soldier, his concluding lines were to be: "For every human being who looks up at the Moon in the nights to come will know that there is some corner of another world that is forever mankind."
Once the speech had been delivered, Mission Control would have closed communications and a clergyman would have conducted a burial service.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/scienceandte ... ailed.html