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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.)
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.
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.
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
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.