I miss the old informality of the Apollo era comms chatter

I was watching an interview with the recently deceased Frank Borman who talked about the famous Apollo 8 "Genesis" speech they gave from the orbit of the moon ("And God bless all of you on the good earth") where Borman said that when he was told he would be speaking to the largest audience that had ever listened to a human voice and he asked what he should say, they were instructed to "say something appropriate." And boy did they. Even as a non believer that speech gives me chills.

Today I listened to the back and forth between SpaceX comms and the Dragon up there at 1400km and you can instantly tell that it's all prepped beforehand and pre-approved and probably vetted by a public relations committee. Mission control said they were higher than anyone had been since the last Apollo mission and the astronaut replied some canned answer about the Artemis program taking us even farther. It just had no soul, and big moments like that should.

They have been doing it for decades now (the speech before the final launch of the space Shuttle comes to mind) and there's no heart to it. I think part of the reason those old broadcast soundbytes still stay with us is because they were genuine. Armstrong said what was in his head/heart. Pete Conrad was a prankster and said what was in his heart ("Whoopie! Man, that may have been a small one for Neil, but that's a long one for me.

I understand why they do it but I still miss it and wish they would go a little more off the cuff for the landing and EVA of Artemis. You'll never hear another astronaut talk about orange drinks making him fart again and that is a loss for all humankind.