Slashdot Mirror
Vostok 1 40th Anniversary
ehintz writes "40 years ago today, 4-12-61, Lt. Yuri Gagarin slipped the surly bonds of Earth to become the first man in orbit. His 108 minute flight aboard Vostok 1 from Baikonur Cosmodrome was the stimulus causing Kennedy to make his famous Man on the Moon speech of 5-25-61, resulting in the moon landing of 7-20-69. We owe our comrades thanks for providing the competition that made it happen." ( michael : More links! The APOD notes that this is also the 20th anniversary of the first Shuttle launch. And NASA provides this image of a newspaper front page, which ought to convey the momentous nature of the event to those of us who weren't born at the time.)
>The A-Bomb
The A-bomb should not be underemphasized. It was developed at a time when virtually the entire production of the country was devoted to the war effort. For example, during the war, the Japanese managed to produce a handful of ships to replace the ones they lost. America on the other hand, produced thousands and thousands of ships, far outstripping the production of the rest of the world combined.
And, in the middle of that, the Manhattan project was completed. That effort was even greater than the effort required to go to the moon, and we did it with our spare production capacity.
So, I'm not sure what that woman is rambling about.
If tits were wings it'd be flying around.
Given National pride for your own country - a race starts to get humans in orbit. All the time the military is laughing all the way to the bank since a "civilian" agency is footing the bill to develop the technology.
Why do you think Republicans hated Clinton so much for "giving" rocket technology to the Chinese? (Apart from all the other reasons Clinton was hated by republicans)
Sorry, I really don't mean this as flamebait, though some may take it as such: do we really need to preface this article in such a negative way? Your blurb makes it sound like the only reason getting a man into space was good was because it meant that the Americans decided to put a man on the moon. What ever happened to getting a man into space (and back safely) being an amazing, incredible feat in itself? I for one think of this as the anniversary of the start of manned space travel, not however many years before the anniversary of the first man on the moon / the launch of the ISS / the first trip to Mars.
The Russians have earned respect and authority when it comes to space exploration, all without media spin. I do not believe that they have been "ignored" in any way. When Sputnik went 'round the world, everyone was listening to *beep* *beep* *beep* on the radio, when Yuri went into space, it was all over television. How many people tuned into the death of MIR? Greatness is for history to decide, not the media.
Also I would like to comment about your diatribe about hypocrisy, granted, sometimes anecdotes can add to a viewpoint, but to be honest it sounded like frustrated venting. I'd like to help you, or tell you that world is a perfect place, but it ain't.
Anyway this is just how I see things, I'm usually wrong most of the time but, hang in there.
-----
crazy dynamite monkey
This is absolutely incorrect. To launch a person into space at that time required an R7 booster. The use and fate of each of those R7s is fully documented and known and the number of people required to keep this a secret is immense.
Yuri Gagarin WAS the first human into space. The origin of this rumor about dead cosmonauts is mostly a result of cold war propaganda.
I'm raising my glass of vodka to Vladimir Ilyushin, the man who went before him, whose parachute failed to deploy, who returned not a hero, but an invalid. But still. the first.
I think sputnik had a larger impact to kennedy because now the russians could monitor the US during the cold war a lot easier. While we only had spy planes that would be intercepted many times, the Russians had satillites that could scan America for almost whatever they wanted. Of course sputnik couldn't do this, but kennedy knew that the russians had accomplished one of the hardest parts to spy planes in space, now they could start building more satillites with better technology which was happening during kennedy's administration.
it is not nearly as creative as other nations were at their peaks, like Britain, Spain, France and Greece. What has America done that compare?
Jazz. Rock n' roll. The Internet. The A-bomb. The moon. The skyscraper. Abstract expressionism. All within just over 200 years. I don't deny that much came before, and much more is to come, but America is doing pretty well.
As a woman, I am attacked because of my gender far more here than anywhere else I have been. As a Catholic, I have been attacked.
How many countries have you been to where women are not allowed to leave the house alone, or own property, or vote, or work? How many countries have you been to where people are routinely bombed/shot/imprisoned for being Catholic? I'm not sure what exactly you mean by "attacked", but Americans have it pretty easy, compared to much of the world.
I would like to see america and the males of america adopt a position of humility, and allow the dispossessed and discriminated against, such as Russians and women, to breathe free and stake their claim in society.
This comment doesn't even make sense. That's the whole point of this country.
Don't you find it ironic that he died in an airplane crash. That's like me dying in a 20 mph mo-ped wreck after getting off my R1.
Mostly I remember the fear. Everyone knew that a missile that could put up a ship the size of Vostok could put an h-bomb on any city in the world. We started having air raid drills at school and the city tested the air raid sirens for the first time since WWII. The Soviets had sworn to bury us, they had h-bombs, and now there was no way to deny that they had a way to deliver them.
It's hard to believe just how badly the entire US was scared by this single event. One night I heard a police siren and ran for the basement thinking it was an air raid siren.
In many ways this was the beginning of the end for the Soviet Union. It convinced us that they were a real threat. A threat so great that they had to be removed. It took a long time and nearly bankrupted the US but there is no Soviet Union any more.
I think it is the connection between space flight and weapons technology that has caused all the worlds governments to block private access to space and space flight technology. The availablity of cheap simple space ships like the DC-X make it just to easy for someone to carry out atomic, chemical, or biological attacks anywhere in the world. Just build your weapon, hijack a ship and BOOM!
StoneWolf
Boy, are some people ignorant.
That's a rather famous poem by John G. Magee called High Flight that's been posted in every American airforce bay from here to Cape Canavaral.
From the referenced page:
The bitter lessons of a veteran coder: http://bitterprogrammer.blogspot.com
would be the most common astronauts.
For all their talk of rationality and science, geeks and engineers are just as full of their stereotypes as those hated jocks. Case in point, NASA, a geek paradise.
If they were truly rational at NASA, they would look at launch costs of $22,000 USD a kilo, and conclude that the lighter the astronaut they launch, the more scientific payloads they could carry, and the more consumables they could carry, thus allowing longer duration missions.
And who would the lightest astronauts be? Women and Asians, that's who. But no, your typical Space Shuttle crew looks more like a cleanly shaven Linux kernel developers meeting than a multicultural experience, mostly white men, with perhaps a token woman or Asian.
As an American taxpayer, I am outraged at this inefficiency. Join me in writing your congresspersons to rectify this.
If you're not an American, consider emigrating, or perhaps you could ask ESA to allow more women and Asians on Ariane missions.
You are right when you say that the Russians have contributed great things to science, etc. Their main problem was that they had brilliant people, but they could not put those ideas into use. For example the physics behind American Stealth technology is based on the discoveries of a Russian scientist that the Soviets could not put into practice.
The great thing about the USA is that we have become so successful, politcally and scientifically, in such a short time. We have no dillusions that we are better than the cultures before, but we do accept new ideas and we at present are the most technologically advanced country in the world. The USA has the resources to fund the most scientific work and thus is going to continue to be the most scientifcally advanced country.
Now if we thought we were this great empire that all should worship, then I can assure you that we would be introverted and would not share our discoveries with others, but we want to create a global society.
The US has its problems, but it recognizes them and it will fix them, and it has fixed many of them. You act as though Europe has no problems, but that is just as ignorant as saying that the US is tuck on itself.
Have a nice day!
What good is a used up world, and how could it be worth having? --Sting
It's often dangerous to do something that nobody has ever done before, but we'd never get anywhere if nobody did anything until it could be pronounced "safe". That's why we have test pilots.
--
spam spam spam spam spam spam
No one expects the Spammish Repetition!
Scientists restrict study to entire physical universe; creationist
I don't wish to take anything away from the Russian space program. However, although it appears that the USSR program was flawless through the late 50's and early 60's, in fact recent documents point out that the Soviets suffered numerous failures, but were able to prevent them from becoming known. The successful Sputnik launch occurred after 3-4 secret failures.
The Americans, on the other hand, were operating entirely under the eye of the world's press. Even though they were working up the same learning curve as the Soviets, every failure they made was a public debacle.
Another interesting (and suppressed) fact is that Gagarin ejected from his capsule and parachuted to the Earth while the capsule crashed below him.
Toronto-area transit rider? Rate your ride.