When Neil Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin became the first humans to walk on the moon in July 1969, Kumiko Torikai was with them every step of the way, repeating their every word. For Japanese around the nation who witnessed the historic event, Torikai was their communication lifeline, the person who relayed Armstrong's immortal words, "One small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind."
In the process, Torikai, who was still a college undergraduate when she gave voice to the two astronauts as an interpreter for a TV station, also unwittingly helped establish another significant leap for what was then her profession.
"The Apollo landing was . . . a threshold (for my profession)," she said. "People saw for the first time how interpreters worked and that there is such a thing as simultaneous interpreting."