Who in your opinion was the greater pioneer? Gagarin or Armstrong?

[HAL9001]

Who was in your inion the greatest poneer?
Yuri Gagarin or Neil Armstrong?
Or asked another way (to avoid a big philosophical discussion...) who would you more like to have been?

 

[C3PO]

I'm staring to think this poll thingie is a really bad idea.

 

[martins]

Do we need a poll about polls?

 

[Scruce]

I'm staring to think this poll thingie is a really bad idea.

It is a good idea only in the right hands, maybe HAL9001 should "limit" his use of the poll system.

 

[PeterRoss]

I like the current poll resuts: 50/50 %

 

[agentgonzo]

Who was in your inion the greatest poneer?
Yuri Gagarin or Neil Armstrong?
Or asked another way (to avoid a big philosophical discussion...) who would you more like to have been?

Those are two entirely different questions. I think that both are huge merits and will be held in almost equal stead (and should be held on par with the first to set foot on another planet whenever that happens).

However, I'd much rather have been Armstrong you get to float in space like Gagarin did, but also bounce on another world. Actually, scratch that, I'd have preferred to be Aldrin... actually, Cernan. A few days on the moon rather than a few hours.

 

[PeterRoss]

OK. I'd like to be a Lunokhod. It's still on moon.

 

[kevin580]

Do we need a poll about polls?

:yes: Shall I make one?

EDIT: Seems like agentgonzo has already made one.

I would be Juri Gagarin. It would be nice to have a feeling of "first man in space".

Anyway, they're both real good people.
It would be nice to be just a "normal" astronaut, like Nespoli.

OK. I'd like to be a Lunokhod. It's still on moon.

Sorry, we are talking about humans. xD A nice idea, anyway..

 

[Mantis]

Armstrong hands down. Being the first man in space would have been amazing but the scale of that accomplishment vs. go to and walking on the surface of the moon, there is no comparison.

 

[N_Molson]

They both are heroes. Period.

 

[TG626]

Apples to Oranges...

 

[T.Neo]

I will not compare Gagarin and Armstrong. They were two different men, on two different missions...

 

[Ark]

I honestly refuse to vote. Both deserve a permanent place in history.

That said, of the two I'd rather be Armstrong. But even with the landing, there were two missions before that went almost as far and assumed roughly the same amount of risk as Apollo 11. Apollo 8 was the first to venture further out and further away from help than anyone had before, and Apollo 10 came within a few miles of the surface. Apollo 11 was the first landing, yes, but any of the problems that could have killed 11's crew would have killed the previous crews as well.