50 years ago today, the first human went into space - Polidicks

[img]http://kickmuckideas.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/Vostok-1-Yuri-Gagarins-rocket-1961.jpg[/img] [img]http://eandt.theiet.org/magazine/2011/03/images/640_vostok.jpg[/img] [media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qfz5B2uERcE[/media] [quote]It was only once dawn broke on the icy steppe that the small, shivering crowd could clearly make out the grinning face of Yuri Gagarin. Fifty years, almost to the day, after the Soviet cosmonaut became the first human being to travel into space, an image from the day of the launch had been painted onto the hulking Soyuz rocket, which was being tugged across the plain by an ageing diesel train. As the rocket was winched into its launch position, the face swivelled upright. Alongside it was the word “Poyekali”, or “Let’s go”, Gagarin’s final statement before he was launched into history. In the West, memories of the Space Race are dominated by Neil Armstrong and Apollo. But in Russia, it is the cult of Gagarin that rules. Last Thursday, prime minister Vladimir Putin visited Gagarin’s hometown near Moscow, and tonight he hosts a glittering party at the Kremlin. In Baikonur – the Russian space agency’s launch station, now rented from the Kazakh government – there will be a star-studded reception, for which many former cosmonauts have been flown in from Moscow, and a concert in the city’s main stadium. According to Andrea Rose, a director of the British Council who is behind plans to erect a statue of Gagarin in London, this veneration is because Gagarin is “the one untarnished figure from the Soviet era”. And partly, it is because of the historical nature of his accomplishment. “I truly believe on that day… humanity became a different species,” says Ron Garan, a Nasa astronaut and one of the crew of last Tuesday’s Soyuz. “We were no longer confined to the boundaries of the earth.” To commemorate the 1961 anniversary, the Russian space agency went all out for Garan’s launch, given that he and his two Russian companions would be the last humans to head into space before April 12. As well as the painting, the rocket was renamed “Gagarin”. For a launchpad, they chose “Gagarin’s Start”, where his epic journey began. The strange thing, however, is that they need hardly have bothered. At Baikonur, it is impossible to escape the cosmonaut's legacy: for every Soyuz launch, a complex cult of Gagarin dictates almost every detail of the preparations. Before arriving at Bakonur, Garan and his companions had, as tradition dictates, laid flowers at Gagarin’s grave near the Kremlin wall, and also visited his study in Star City, the Russian space HQ. On arrival, they will have made the ritual visit to the cottage where the 27-year-old pilot spent his last night before launch, singing folk songs and reciting poetry with his back-up, Gherman Titov (who would soon become the second man in space). Then, like every other cosmonaut, they will have planted a tree next to the one Gagarin left 50 years ago, and written a message in a special book, pledging that they would do their duty “in the spirit of Gagarin”. Finally, in Baikonur’s oddest tradition, they would have relieved themselves on the back tyre of the bus that took them to the rocket. “Gagarin just had to go,” explains Bert Vis, the author of 'Russian’s Cosmonauts’. “With this, he set a tradition that has been followed by every crew member who ever flew on a Soviet or Russian spacecraft.” Sergei Krikalev, the man responsible for training astronauts at the Russian space agency – and, at 803 days, the record-holder for total time spent in space – is reluctant to be drawn as to why the Gagarin cult is so pervasive. “People follow the traditions for different reasons,” he says. “Each astronaut has their own.” Yet Brian Harvey, the author of Russia in Space: The Failed Frontier?, argues that it reflects the risks involved. “Rockets are dangerous things, so those who fly them need all the luck they can get,” he says. Gagarin himself nearly burnt up in re-entry, after a cable failed to disconnect and swung his capsule around to re-enter the atmosphere backwards. “Through the porthole I could see reflections of the raging flames which encompassed the ship,” he said later. “I was in a fireball, headed for Earth… for a moment I was terrified.” In the end, the heat burnt the cable off, the capsule righted itself, and he had a smooth landing. But in an interview with Andrea Rose, his daughter Elena – who has traditionally been reluctant to discuss her father’s achievements – reveals that he was so aware of the enormous risks involved that he lied to his wife. “When he was leaving for Baikonur,” she says, “he told her what he was doing. But he didn’t tell her the actual date. He told her the flight would take place a few days after the real date, so she wouldn’t be worried.” He also wrote a letter for his wife, “saying that it was likely he wouldn’t return, because the flight was extremely dangerous, and that he wanted her not to remain on her own in that case. But he didn’t give her the letter. She found it by chance among his things when he came back.” It was not just his courage that made Gagarin the perfect hero. He came from humble origins – as Elena recalls, the family “were thrown out of their house by the Germans, and had to live in a dugout in the garden for three years. There was no food, and no possibility of studying.” Once the Soviets recaptured the area, the schools reopened, “but life was tremendously difficult. They had almost nothing: there was no paper, for example – they had to hunt for bits of wood or scraps of paper from around the town to write on.” Perhaps it was this early deprivation that kindled Gagarin’s love of learning: a brilliant and sensitive man, he had a lifelong passion for books and literature, and loved to recite poetry to his daughters. “He was also very interested in the engineering aspects of space flight and the construction of spaceships,” she recalls, developing his own design for a fixed-wing space plane rather like the Space Shuttle. Sergei Korolev, the secret mastermind behind the Russian space programme, “thought he would have been one of the leading astrophysicists had he had the education and training”. Gagarin was also wonderful company – and it was, Elena believes, that charismatic, gregarious personality that got him the nod over Titov, and made him ideally suited to his new status as the world’s most famous man. “Gagarin was more personable than Armstrong,” says Piers Bizony, one of his biographers. “He was an exceptionally good diplomat. He was handsome, charming and generous.” Harold Macmillan, prime minister when he visited London three months after going into space, thought him “a delightful fellow”, as did one British nurse who broke through the crash barriers to give him a kiss: he was, she declared, “the most kissable man in the universe”. It is difficult, today, for us to understand the level of Gagarin’s instant celebrity. When he visited Britain, he was driven through cheering crowds in an open-topped Rolls Royce, with the numberplate YG-1, to take tea with the Queen at Buckingham Palace (Elena recalls that she “gave him some rather beautiful dolls to bring back for me and Galina). The Russophobe Daily Mail even ran the headline: “Make him Sir Yuri!”, while John F Kennedy was so alarmed by his popularity that he banned him from entering the United States. It was not to last: on March 27, 1968, Gagarin died in a plane crash while on a routine training flight. Yet if he were alive today, he might enjoy the fact that the Russian space programme appears to have recaptured some of its former glories. Admittedly, Baikonur looks surprisingly unchanged since his day: much of it has not seen a lick of paint for thirty years, and many of the hundreds of hangers and workshops are crumbling and deserted. Yet today, the site launches as many commercial satellites as the US and China combined. And once the US Space Shuttle is retired later this year, every visitor to the International Space Station will have to get there via Soyuz, a rocket whose mechanisms are still based on those designed by Korolev in the 1960s. There, in the area of the station occupied by the Russians, those visitors will find just two pictures – one of Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, the Russian writer who pioneered the idea of space flight, and the other of Yuri Gagarin, the man who, 50 years ago today, became the first to reach into the stars. [/quote] [url=http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/8443777/Yuri-Gagarin-50th-anniversary-of-the-first-man-in-space.html]**Caviar**[/url] It's amazing to point out that while they were the first into space and never really went beyond that, they are currently the only country on the planet who can still send people into space. For a country like the former Soviet Untion, that is very impressive. It's worth noting that while the russians managed to pull off 108 minutes in space, the US managed to pull off a trip to space almost a month later and remain there for only a mere 15 minutes. [media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b-3MS6duEMY[/media] [img]http://images.nationalgeographic.com/wpf/media-live/photos/000/009/cache/freedom-7_967_990x742.jpg[/img] [img]http://images.spaceref.com/news/2003/IMG_5571.jpg[/img]

I love history, it's incredible.

Fake. It was all staged, silly.

Russians don't seem to gloat about this and seems hushed under America landing on the moon, which they gloat about. i think getting someone in space the first time is the bigger achivement.

[QUOTE=Matix;29123022]Fake. It was all staged, silly.[/QUOTE] My god

[QUOTE=krakadict;29123123]Russians don't seem to gloat about this and seems hushed under America landing on the moon, which they gloat about. i think getting someone in space the first time is the bigger achivement.[/QUOTE] Getting someone into space, landing them on the moon, taking off from the moon then landing back on earth without anyone dying is a much bigger technological achievement than merely getting into space Yeah Russians did get into space first, but as an achievement that pales in comparison to getting a human being skipping around the surface of the big cheesewheel

[QUOTE=O'10er;29123326]Getting someone into space, landing them on the moon, taking off from the moon then landing back on earth without anyone dying is a much bigger technological achievement than merely getting into space Yeah Russians did get into space first, but as an achievement that pales in comparison to getting a human being skipping around the surface of the big cheesewheel[/QUOTE] who cares both countries did an amazing feat and that's all that matters

If only space programs had the budget they had back then...

Poor thing Yuri gagarin died..........

[QUOTE=Ignhelper;29123892]Poor thing Yuri gagarin died..........[/QUOTE] vulcanized on re-entry Wait which astronaut died on reentry?

[QUOTE=DesolateGrun;29123999]vulcanized on re-entry[/QUOTE] I can't tell if you're joking or not, but he died in a plane crash.

The google picture changed too.

[QUOTE=Zombii;29124192]I can't tell if you're joking or not, but he died in a plane crash.[/QUOTE] Wait which soviet astronaut died on reentry?

[QUOTE=krakadict;29123123]Russians don't seem to gloat about this and seems hushed under America landing on the moon, which they gloat about. i think getting someone in space the first time is the bigger achivement.[/QUOTE] For either side to gloat would be idiotic. Simply being proud of the achievements by both countries is more important and much better. Landing on the moon was just as stunning a feat as getting someone into space.

:ussr:

[media]http://nazareneblogs.org/kpprobst/files/2010/04/funny_wallpapers_yuri_gagarin_018771_1.jpg[/media]

This is a thread celebrating human achievement. We don't need to bring religion in here.

[QUOTE=Melnek;29124886][media]http://nazareneblogs.org/kpprobst/files/2010/04/funny_wallpapers_yuri_gagarin_018771_1.jpg[/media][/QUOTE] That's been my wallpaper for about 2 moths now :v:

fuck yes humanity

We haven't even been to Mars. :frog:

[QUOTE=Melnek;29124886][media]http://nazareneblogs.org/kpprobst/files/2010/04/funny_wallpapers_yuri_gagarin_018771_1.jpg[/media][/QUOTE] ohh come on

[QUOTE=Melnek;29124886][media]http://nazareneblogs.org/kpprobst/files/2010/04/funny_wallpapers_yuri_gagarin_018771_1.jpg[/media][/QUOTE] Except he didn't say that.

[QUOTE=Zombii;29124192]I can't tell if you're joking or not, but he died in a plane crash.[/QUOTE] no he knew too much and higher ups didnt like it, so they got rid of him, probably a mental hospital.

The only good Communist is a dead Communist.

[QUOTE=Melnek;29124886][media]http://nazareneblogs.org/kpprobst/files/2010/04/funny_wallpapers_yuri_gagarin_018771_1.jpg[/media][/QUOTE] Actually a Soviet propaganda campaign, but whatever.

[img]http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/01869/Yuri-Gagarin-astro_1869779i.jpg[/img] Oh wait, who's that he's with? [img]http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4125/5040682324_0ce8a2dc0e.jpg[/img] [img]http://26.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_livhm76OPM1qbbg7jo1_400.jpg[/img] lol

50 years huh.. Well aren't humans quite something, and we have all the time we need.. Future looks quite bright in a way

Today I'll see if I can find some vodka, then go to the roof and look at the stars :smile:

[QUOTE=Melnek;29124886][media]http://nazareneblogs.org/kpprobst/files/2010/04/funny_wallpapers_yuri_gagarin_018771_1.jpg[/media][/QUOTE] Great picture, but that's not the real quote.

[QUOTE=Melnek;29124886][media]http://nazareneblogs.org/kpprobst/files/2010/04/funny_wallpapers_yuri_gagarin_018771_1.jpg[/media][/QUOTE] The real quote, which he said in an interview a few days after he landed, was "I looked and looked but I didn't see God."