[X] My Assistant

[ustrax]

Well...
As everyone is quite sleepy due to the conjunction I thought about throwing a contest, we all know how we love a good fight...

On our national tv it has started a format that those in UK should know because it came from there, originally known as "The Great Bretons", here has gained the "Os Grandes Portugueses" title.
The objective is to choose the figure, alive or dead, that, from it's achievements you consider the most important...It was hard to decide but I've choosen Henry the Navigator, but Dom Afonso Henriques, Magalhães, Pessoa, Dom Nuno Álvares Pereira, Camões and Bartolomeu Dias made me think a lot...

We could do that here during this limbo days...
To vote on the one we consider the most important person on the quest for space knowledge.
To spice things a bit and avoid the hard task of choosing between this one or that one we have the right to choose five figures and vote them from 1 to 5 according to the importance we give them.
If anyone wants to add some more rules or ideas feel free to do so...

So, here goes my selection:

Carl Sagan - 1
Von Braun - 2
Korolev - 3
Galileo Galilei - 4
Yuri Gagarin - 5

Fight! Fight! Fight!

[Stu]

Gentlemen...You are forgetting the votes...

I read your "format" as being #1 = most important too, that's the way it's usually done. I think you're wanting a kind of Eurovision Song Contest vote...

Okay, well, I'm game.

Good evening Portugal... greetings from the beautiful Lake District in Cumbria, in the United Kingdom. Thank you for putting on a wonderful show tonight! (pause for insincere cheesy "Yes, yes, get on with it you scene-stealing foreigner..." grin from presenters...) Here are the votes from the Kendal jury...

Chesley Bonestell (space artist, who inspired a whole generation to reach for the planets): one point (un point)

Gene Rodenberry (TV series maker, who inspired the following generation, and every other since, including countless astronauts, engineers and scientists, to reach not just for the planets but for the stars ): two points (deux points)

Carl Sagan (legend... Earth's first and finest interstellar ambassador): three points (troi points)

Neil Armstrong (US astronaut, first man on the Moon... you've maybe heard of him...): four points (quatre points)

... and finally...

Yuri Gagarin (first human being to voluntarily sit on top of a stack of high explosives and let other people sat safely in bunkers miles away set them off beneath him and hope he went "up" and not "out"): five points (cinq points)

This concludes the voting of the Kendal jury...



( With honourable mentions to:

* Sally Ride - first US woman in space
* Christa McAuliffe - first teacher in space (huge inspiration to me personally, as I do Outreach work in schools)
* John "If you can build it I can fly it!" Young
* Mike Foale - UK-born astronaut who followed his dream and didn't let the fact that the British Governments of every age are so short-sighted and stoopid that they simply Don't Get how important space exploration is. )

[ustrax]

I read your "format" as being #1 = most important too, that's the way it's usually done. I think you're wanting a kind of Eurovision Song Contest vote...

...un point...

I knew some of you europeans would come up with that 'un point' talk...
Oh man...You all on the other side of the Atlantic don't know what you're missing when we're talking about Eurovision...

I see Gagarin taking the lead...

[climber]

I knew some of you europeans would come up with that 'un point' talk...

Oh yes, that was my first thought Thanks Stu to say it all.

Oh man...You all on the other side of the Atlantic don't know what you're missing when we're talking about Eurovision...

BTW, once we have elected the ONE individual...his country will have to organize next year competition
I agree, some have just NO idea of what they're missing

[Tesheiner]

I agree, some have just NO idea of what they're missing

I would say that some are just lucky to have no idea of what they're missing.

[climber]

I would say that some are just lucky to have no idea of what they're missing.

Oh yes, that was definitively a second degree quote