Among the choices, definitely Spock. The character just keeps going and going…
That’s an excellent suggestion. But consider it as an archetype “the Anglo-Saxon hero in a spacesuit/overalls with a blaster in his hand” and it becomes VERY iconic. On the cover of so many pulp-fiction magazines and comic books.
KAHHHHHNNNN!!!
The definition you’re citing specifies “widely known for distinctive excellence,” so popularity is definitely a factor. And, as much as I love Dr. Who, for most of the show’s existence, it was mostly known for it’s distinctive cheapness.
Anyway, Mary Poppins is both an earlier and better known example of the archetype.
True, she was after all practically perfect.
I’m regretting using the word Iconic. Just not sure what word would have been better.
I am very happy Spock is way ahead of Kirk though.
It’s the size of a small moon, but won’t have anywhere near the same mass, as there’s a lot of hollow space within it. It won’t have anywhere near the density of a real moon, and so would have far less natural gravity. Building this way, though, you have at least some windows on every level. Making it a nested set of spheres with gravity towards the center, you’d have one level with a lot of skylights, and then every other level being a dank pit of artificial lighting. You have to think of the re-sale value here, everyone knows windows add to a home’s value!
Wait a minute! Valentine Michael Smith wasn’t even on the poll!
Good call, that is iconic.
Skimming through the thread now, I see there’s some discussion of what “iconic” means. For me, it has to be distinguished from “archetype”, which is what I think some of you are going for. Looking at the archetypes of the characters:
Kirk: classic SciFi hero who can out-muscle or out-think any opponent, while winning female affection. Not original at all.
Spock: hero who struggles with conflicted origins. Fairly unique presentation.
Han Solo: classic Western hero with unlimited self confidence. Straight-forward adaptation to SciFi.
Darth Vader: classic evil knight with magic powers. Nothing original at all, but presented in a very iconic way.
Dr Who: magical and mysterious trickster-hero. A new and clever form of the archetype.
Ripley: same archetype as Kirk, but adapted as feminine.
In terms of originality of the archetype as presented, I’d rate them as:
Dr Who: 9/10
Spock: 6/10
Darth Vader: 5/10
Han Solo: 3/10
Ripley: 2/10
Kirk: 1/10
Think the average stormtrooper knows how to install a skylight? All they know is killing and white uniforms.
Yet I snuck him in anyway. 
You only got half of Spock though, he was also the Science Hero. I don’t know who his predecessor was in this regard. Probably Wells’ Time Traveler who is nameless in the book.
By the time the first episode of STAR TREK aired, hadn’t Adam West wrapped up his first season as the guy who uses a computer to solve crimes and breaks out a laserbeam or whatever to get the win?
Once again, Superheroes are not SciFi. Both are Spec Fiction but Superheroes is not Science Fiction.
Jules Verne’s Captain Nemo? Granted, he was an ambiguous character between hero and villain.
I don’t think The Doctor from Dr Who really even ranks on a list of iconic SciFi characters if we confined the poll to Americans. I think even ALF would even be ahead of him by this standard.
Which is, of course, why blowing up the second Death Star was a war crime.
Actually Doctor Who finally got popular in the US with the current 20 somethings that caught new Who. David Tennant and Matt Smith leading this newer fandom.
The under 30 crowd wouldn’t know ALF at all.
Your thread, your rules, but “science hero” is a term I’ve only ever heard of in the context of super hero comics. Leaving them out, there’s Mr. Cavor, from Well’s First Men in the Moon, a physicist who invented the anti-gravity material Cavorite. The book’s not super well known these days (outside of sf geek circles, obviously), but Cavorite shows up in a lot of steampunk stuff. Surely someone in Verne must qualify, as well.
I’m going to disagree about the “Science Hero”, although there is a lot of overlap, and it is an overwhelming trope in comic books. I’d describe Tom Swift, Doc Savage, and several characters of the Lensman series as science heroes. Not that they don’t also have other tropes and archetypal elements applied as well, but so does Spock, who has science hero, fish out of water, and stoic to name a few.
I’ll grant that he’s perceived so by others, but it’s not how I think of the character. It’s his internal conflict that makes the character for me.
Agree completely with the one quibble that addresses a follow up about The Doctor. Magical Trickster was part of it but the one character regenerating into variations, riffs, of the essential theme … that was also part of the originality. There is no declaring which Doctor is the archetypal one or the most iconic. The totality is part of what makes the distinctive excellence. Definitely widely known but being widely known is not the point.