Regret the Error

Neil Armstrong piloted the lunar module to the moon’s surface on July 20, 1969. A story in Sunday’s A-section named the wrong person.

A story in Tuesday’s Observer about Statesville native Tom Marshburn’s first spacewalk misquoted the words of Neil Armstrong when he stepped onto the moon in 1969. Armstrong said: "That’s one small step for (a) man, one giant leap for mankind." Also, Marshburn’s name was misspelled in a caption.

A photo caption incorrectly identified the astronauts meeting with President Obama. They were from left Buzz Aldrin, Michael Collins and Neil Armstrong.

Michael Collins stayed aboard the command module in orbit around the moon while Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin descended to the lunar surface and walked on the moon. An story on Page C1 of Sunday’s Journal Star incorrectly stated Collins’ role in the first moonwalk 40 years ago.

A story on Monday’s Page A6 about UW-Madison research on moon rocks correctly noted that Harrison "Jack" Schmitt was the last man to set foot on the moon. Schmitt followed fellow astronaut Eugene "Gene" Cernan onto the surface during the 1972 Apollo 17 mission. When the pair left, however, Schmitt stepped onto the Apollo Lunar Module first, making Cernan the last man to leave the moon.

An article on Tuesday about people who believe that the Moon landing was a hoax referred incorrectly to a picture in a feature on the Lens blog at nytimes.com. As correctly noted in the feature, ”Dateline: Space,” the photograph of an astronaut standing on the surface of the Moon shows Buzz Aldrin — not Neil Armstrong. (Mr. Armstrong took the picture.)

And, of course, there are also these two related corrections from the Times.