Did you know that while the Apollo 11 lander was on the Moon's surface, and the astronauts were out there exploring the Moon, the Soviet Union's Luna 15 crash-landed into the surface -- about 554km away from the Eagle LM.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luna_15

Yet, the very next mission, Luna 16, was the first successful sample-return mission from the Moon (or anywhere I guess), and the Soviets did it uncrewed, in 1970.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luna_16

It only took one more iteration, Luna 17, to carry a rover to the Moon: Луноход-1; and have it successfully rove around up there, uncrewed! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunokhod_1

That was so fun that the Soviets followed it up with a second successful rover!

The Soviets also did Venera missions to Venus. They sent like 12 of them. Many were successful landings or atmospheric entries with good data. 4, 5, 6, and 7, to begin with.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_space_program#Venusian_...

Sorry I went a little heavy on the Soviet side of things, but rest assured that NASA was enjoying robotic success as well, including the Surveyors on the Moon, which blazed trails for Apollo landings.

I believe that the radio round-trip delay, from the Earth to the Moon and back, is something on the order of 3 seconds. "Cowboy Neil's" manual intervention isn't the only way to land there.

That being said, NASA's Viking and Pioneer programs were qualitatively different from the newer probes coming out of JPL, and even different still are the commercial ones. All these space agencies need to try out their own combinations of inspiration, perspiration, and high-tech.