Today, April 12th 2011, is the 50th anniversary of the first human spaceflight by Yuri Gagarin in 1961.
This explanation from The NASA Astronomy Pic of the Day archive:
On April 12th, 1961, Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Alexseyevich Gagarin became the first human in space. His remotely controlled Vostok 1 spacecraft lofted him to an altitude of 200 miles and carried him once around planet Earth. Commenting on the first view from space he reported, “The sky is very dark; the Earth is bluish. Everything is seen very clearly”. His view could have resembled this image taken in 2003 from the International Space Station. Alan Shepard, the first US astronaut, would not be launched until almost a month later and then on a comparatively short suborbital flight. Born on March 9, 1934, Gagarin was a military pilot before being chosen for the first group of cosmonauts in 1960. As a result of his historic flight he became an international hero and legend. Killed when his MIG jet crashed during a training flight in 1968, Gagarin was given a hero’s funeral, his ashes interred in the Kremlin Wall. Twenty years later, on yet another April 12th, in 1981, NASA launched the first space shuttle.
- Cracked: 5 Soviet Space Programs that Prove Russia Was Insane
- Guardian UK: Yuri Gagarin and the return of the space heroes
- British Council Voices: Elena Gagarina remembers her father
- Guardian UKL: Yuri Gagarin’s Private Passions: Pushkin and the Little Prince
- Guardian UK: What Yuri Gagarin Saw. First Orbit Film to reveal the view from Vostok 1
- Guardian UK: Follow Yuri Gagarin on the first human spaceflight
- Guardian UK: Russian Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin to be honoured with statue in London
- Discovery News: Vladimir Komarov, the unsung space hero
#1 by Porfirio Bosse on April 12, 2011 - 21:02
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