Neil Armstrong December 23, 1968, as Apollo 8 orbited the Moon. In a meeting that was not made public until the publication of Armstrong's biography in 2005, Slayton told him that although the planned crew was Commander Armstrong, Lunar Module Pilot Buzz Aldrin, and Command Module Pilot Michael Collins, he was offering Armstrong the chance to replace Aldrin with Jim Lovell. After thinking it over for a day, Armstrong told Slayton he would stick with Aldrin, as he had no difficulty working with him and thought Lovell deserved his own command. Replacing Aldrin with Lovell would have made Lovell the lunar module
Yuri Gagarin during the period of the Soviet Union. The Air Force Academy was renamed Gagarin Air Force Academy in 1968. There is street in Warsaw called Yuri Gagarin Street. Gagarin has been honored on the Moon by both astronauts and astronomers. He was honored by the American space program during Apollo 11 in 1969 when astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin left a memorial satchel containing medals commemorating Gagarin and fellow cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov on the surface. In 1971, Apollo 15 astronauts David Scott and James Irwin left the "Fallen Astronaut" at their landing site as a memorial to all the