Who was the funniest astronaut?

The pick: Pete Conrad

Apollo 12 commander, third person to walk on the Moon (1969)

Described by historian Jordan Bimm as a constant comedian, and remembered by CBS News and Mental Floss for a lunar wisecrack he had bet money on.

Also in the running

• Wally Schirra (Mercury, Gemini and Apollo astronaut, flew 1962–1968): Space.com's 2007 obituary called him notorious for practical jokes, and NASA Administrator Mike Griffin praised his puns and pranks.
• Mike Massimino (Space shuttle astronaut, two Hubble servicing missions): Co-host of the 2 Funny Astronauts podcast launched in May 2021, per collectSPACE, and a guest as himself on The Big Bang Theory.
• Garrett Reisman (Space station crew member and shuttle astronaut): Massimino's co-host on 2 Funny Astronauts, who also had a cameo on the Apple TV+ series For All Mankind, collectSPACE reported.

What made them funny

Conrad stood about 5 feet 6 inches, earned an aeronautical engineering degree from Princeton in 1953, and logged over 4,000 flight hours as a Navy test pilot before NASA picked him in September 1962. Jordan Bimm describes a joke-a-minute, raucous man, and a reader of Princeton Alumni Weekly remembered him as a highly skilled pilot and a fun-loving individual at the same time. CBS News put it plainly: colorful in his speech, strictly business about the mission.

His humor worked by refusing the script. When Italian journalist Oriana Fallaci suggested that astronauts were handed their lines, he told her what he would say on the Moon and bet her $500, a story Mental Floss traces to Andrew Chaikin's book A Man on the Moon. Years earlier, at the 1959 Mercury selection, he had met an inkblot-style psychological test with sarcasm instead of earnestness. Each time, the joke was smaller than the occasion, and that gap was the laugh.

Techniques to take into your videos and sets

1. 1. Resize the famous line to fit you

   What they did

   Stepping off the lunar module ladder in November 1969, Conrad answered Neil Armstrong's line from four months earlier with "that may have been a small one for Neil," then called his own step a long one. A short man had turned history's most quoted sentence into a remark about leg length.

   Why it works

   Everyone already knows the original, so the setup costs nothing. Taking it literally and measuring yourself against it shrinks the grand version and makes you the underdog in one move.

   Example (original, written by Shutap)

   That may have been a quick hike for the guy in the trail-running vest, but it was a long one for a man in borrowed Crocs carrying a cooler.

   Try it

   Find the most famous line or post about the thing you just did, read one word of it literally, and measure your own version against it.

2. 2. Put money on the punchline

   What they did

   Conrad told Oriana Fallaci his Moon words in advance and wagered $500 that he would say them, to prove nobody at NASA wrote astronauts' lines. He later said she never paid.

   Why it works

   Announcing a joke ahead of time with a stake on it turns delivery into a dare. The audience is no longer waiting for a laugh, they are waiting to see if you have the nerve, and the unpaid debt becomes a second joke.

   Example (original, written by Shutap)

   On Monday I bet my roommate $20 I'd tell the landlord on our video call that the dishwasher has feelings. I said it. She still owes me, and the dishwasher still won't drain.

   Try it

   Open a video by telling viewers exactly what you are about to say or do, name a stake, then cut to whether you followed through and who paid.

3. 3. Hand the blank back

   What they did

   During the 1959 Mercury selection, one of 56 pilots invited, Conrad was shown a blank sheet and asked what he saw. The Observer-Reporter's Bruce G. Kauffmann quotes his sarcastic answer: "It's upside down."

   Why it works

   A pointless question invites a solemn answer. Treating it as if there were a real, fixable defect in it exposes the absurdity without arguing, and leaves the person who asked with nothing to say.

   Example (original, written by Shutap)

   The landlord's move-out checklist had a blank line labeled 'Other damages,' so I wrote 'your choice of font.'

   Try it

   Take a form field, survey question or prompt in your story that asks for nothing, and answer it as if it had one specific flaw you noticed.

4. 4. Shrink the category until you win it

   What they did

   Announcing their podcast to collectSPACE in May 2021, Massimino summed up the pair with "We're not funny guys, we're funny astronauts!" The claim to humor survives only because the competition is the small group of people who have flown in space.

   Why it works

   Boasting reads as arrogant; boasting inside a tiny, oddly specific group reads as honest and self-aware. The listener does the math on how small the field is, and that is the joke.

   Example (original, written by Shutap)

   I'm not a fast runner. I'm a fast runner for a guy holding two bags of groceries and a cat carrier.

   Try it

   State the skill you are proud of, then keep adding conditions to the category until it is obviously tiny, and stop on the most visual one.

Before you quote them

The exact wording of Conrad's Moon line varies between sources: Mental Floss prints "that's a long one for me" and CBS News prints "it's a long one for me." The $500 bet with Oriana Fallaci rests on Conrad's own account, as reported from Andrew Chaikin's book. Stories that Schirra pulled particular pranks on Gemini 6 circulate widely but are not in the sources used here, so they are left out.

Questions people ask

Who was the funniest astronaut?

Pete Conrad is the name that comes up most. There is no formal ranking, but historian Jordan Bimm told Princeton Alumni Weekly in 2019 that humor was the overarching thing about him, and CBS News and Mental Floss both singled out the wisecrack he made as the third person on the Moon.

What were Pete Conrad's first words on the Moon?

Stepping down from the Apollo 12 lunar module in November 1969, Conrad said that it may have been a small one for Neil, but it was a long one for him. At about 5 feet 6 inches, he was joking about his own height and Armstrong's famous line.

Did Pete Conrad really bet $500 on his Moon line?

That is his own account. Mental Floss, citing Andrew Chaikin's A Man on the Moon, reports that Conrad told journalist Oriana Fallaci his words in advance to show NASA did not script astronauts, bet her $500, and said he was never paid.

Who else is considered a funny astronaut?

Wally Schirra, whom Space.com called notorious for practical jokes when he died in May 2007. More recently, shuttle veterans Mike Massimino and Garrett Reisman launched the 2 Funny Astronauts podcast in May 2021, collectSPACE reported, and Massimino played himself on The Big Bang Theory.

What kind of humor did Pete Conrad use?

Short, irreverent one-liners aimed at ceremony and at himself. He mocked the 1959 Mercury selection tests, answering a blank-sheet question with "It's upside down," per the Observer-Reporter, and turned the Moon landing into a height joke, while CBS News noted he stayed strictly business about the mission.

Sources

• Princeton Alumni Weekly, November 6, 2019: PAWcast: Jordan Bimm on the legacy of astronaut Pete Conrad '53
• Mental Floss, July 30, 2014: Mental Floss: The astronaut whose first words on the Moon were a joke
• CBS News, July 9, 1999: CBS News: Apollo 12 moonwalker dies
• Observer-Reporter, July 7, 2018: Observer-Reporter: Pete Conrad, the original 'rocket man' (Bruce G. Kauffmann)
• Space.com, May 3, 2007: Space.com: Original astronaut Wally Schirra dies at 84
• collectSPACE, May 4, 2021: collectSPACE: '2 Funny Astronauts' podcast from Massimino and Reisman