re: who had bigger balls?

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Columbus or the crew of Apollo 11?

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Apollo 11 wasn't the first crew to go to the moon. Apollo 8 was. The LM wasn't ready for a flight to the moon yet, but we decided that 8 would be the first flight to send humans to the moon and orbit it to beat the Russians there. Incidentally, Lovell was on Apollo 8 and 13. That dude went to the moon twice and didn't get to walk on it once. The second trip was decidedly dicier.

Apollo 9 did not go to the moon. That flight stayed in Earth orbit and tested out putting two guys in the LM, letting them fly around a bit, then rendezvous and docking with the CM to be able to get home. The two guys in the LM had giant balls, too, because if it failed to get back to the CM and dock, they'd die.

Apollo 10 went to the moon before Apollo 11 as well. Stafford and Cernan detached the LM in lunar orbit and flew down to within 10 miles of the moon's surface. It was a full-up test flight of the LM in lunar gravity, and NASA had loaded the descent engine with enough fuel to land. The idea was to test the engines, let them take it down to a predetermined altitude, then jettison the descent stage. The LM's ascent engine, however, was not fully loaded. It was loaded with the amount of propellants they'd have on board if they had landed and then ascended to the altitude they were at when they jettisoned the descent stage. They wanted to have the LM be as close to a landing and lunar rendezvous and docking as possible, without actually landing. Though Apollo 10 could've easily landed with their full descent stage, NASA didn't give them enough fuel in the ascent stage to leave the moon if they landed, only enough to maneuver back to the Command Module from the altitude they were supposed to be at in the mission profile. This ensured the crew didn't get any ideas of attempting a rogue landing. NASA knew the kind of people that were in these spacecraft and didn't take any chances.

Incidentally, John Young, who stayed in the CM while Cernan and Stafford took the LM out for a spin was NOTORIOUS at NASA for bucking orders and doing what he wanted, so the light fuel load may well have been warranted, even though he wasn't supposed to be in the LM. If you've ever heard of the guy who smuggled a corned beef sandwich into space, that was John Young. He was also widely thought to be one of the finest pilots and engineers that NASA had on staff, so he also ended up being the commander of the first Shuttle flight.

Apollo 11 just happened to be the crew picked to get enough fuel to land. Armstrong would be the commander and fly the LM, even though Aldrin was the LM pilot, because he was an exceptionally gifted test pilot that was proven to operate calmly in dire life-threatening situations. Aldrin would be the LM pilot, though he largely was on board because Dr. Aldrin LITERALLY wrote the book on orbital rendezvous for his doctoral dissertation in Astronautics at MIT and that's just the guy you want on board if things go haywire during that phase of the mission. Collins was chosen as CM pilot largely because he had a vast amount of experience with docking. Again, you want the guys who know in that spacecraft for the landing.

The point being that every mission in Apollo built on the preceding missions and every one of those glorious bastards had a giant pair of nuts.

Not a legit question at all.

The likelihood that any problem could become catostrophic is far greater in space. There was no way to survive without the ship.

Apollo 11 all day.

Who cares. What's true is all those guys had big giant balls.
Yes. There was talk of something being over here but could all these people sit down and discuss it on the internet? No. most thought you would drop off the end of the world.
And, in spite of having all these people working for your survival that astronauts had, they still didn't have the computing power of your basic cellphone.
All these people had big giant brass balls

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Many people thought he would sail off the edge of the earth

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I'd ra

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Not a legit question at all.

The likelihood that any problem could become catostrophic is far greater in space. There was no way to survive without the ship.

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They were onboard the spacecraft for 8 days

It took Columbus two full months before they even sighted land. Their first voyage took well over a year. During that time, they encountered numerous tribes and actually fought one battle. The journey of Columbus was a far riskier endeveavor than Apollo 11 who has already been shown to have been a simple "next step" in the logical progression of getting man to the moon.

Columbus had no idea what he was getting into especially on his first trip. He was going into the unknown.

Apollo 11 at least had a relatively good idea what they were getting into.