Design Is Not Opinion

Neil Armstrong has heart problems

Neil Armstrong is having heart bypass surgery.

Armstrong via NASA

I've always had mixed feelings towards Mr. Armstrong.

On the one hand, he was first and this Counts. In every possible way, it Counts. He stood on the moon and he did it first. Yes, there were at least a dozen others who could have done it, but it was him. He did it calmly and successfully.

On the other hand, there's the dullness, and his refusal to have any sort of a public life, and that pisses me off. I don't know how else to describe it. He landed on the moon. But was that the totality of his mission, piloting the LEM?

He did that part of the job, and many will say that it's not right to expect anything more from him. But is that true?      

Gagarin's Falsified Flight Record : Discovery News

For a flight to count, the pilot-astronaut or pilot-cosmonaut would have land with his spacecraft. After all, if a pilot fails to land his with his aircraft, it's usually because something has gone wrong and the flight has been a failure. Why should spaceflight be any different?

via news.discovery.com

Yuri Gagarin has always been a bit of a hero to me. Why? Because what he did– climb into a rocket that was no where near ready for human flight– was a stunning act of bravery. In point of fact, all of the Mercury astronauts took a similar ride.