Everyone knows Yuri Gagarin was the first person to go to space. What this article presupposes is…maybe he wasn’t? It all boils down to what your definition of space is.
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I see what you did there.
I think if you can get there with a balloon, you're not in space. I'm not sure where the current imaginary line is draw between space and not space but lacking enough atmosphere to support a balloon would be a decent place to do it.
Now straight into contradicting myself - the dude that did the Red Bull jump from a balloon sure looked like he was in space, but I fully support my proposal in the previous paragraph. Also, Yuri has to get extra points for riding a sketchy-ass rocket.
This is also kinda like saying were the Wright brothers the first to fly or was a balloon person the first. I don't think they are comparable. The method of getting there has to be taken into consideration. This is the argument with Blue Origin's rocket that goes high but doesn't even attempt orbit. Is that a defining factor, achieving orbit versus just being high?
Without taking anything away from the achievement of the people who've been there, I've often felt this way about the ISS. They're in free-fall, effectively flying across the planet like in a jet plane. "Proper" space is when you're out of orbit, so by my definition only the Apollo astronauts have been in space.
(Yes, I guess you're always in "orbit" of any body larger than you...)
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