Slashdot Mirror
Celebrating Yuri Gagarin's 1961 Flight Into Space
DeviceGuru writes "The 50th anniversary of the first-ever manned space flight, by Soviet Cosmonaut Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin, is being celebrated on April 12 with a two-day early activation of the ARISSat-1 ham radio satellite aboard the International Space Station. If you can get your hands on a scanner or ham handy-talkie you can join in the celebration by listening to prerecorded messages from the satellite as it orbits the globe tonight and tomorrow."
Good to see other people other countries joining what I though to be a purely Soviet holiday up till now. A person well worth celebrating, mind you!
;)
But I suppose the internet helps...
Enjoy, and don't get too drunk today
Ura! Yuri Alekseevich!
It was this guy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladimir_Ilyushin
Have you actually read the article you are citing?
FTFWPA: "The entire early history of the Soviet manned space program has been declassified and we have piles of memoirs of cosmonauts, engineers, etc., who participated. We know who was in the original cosmonaut team, who never flew, was dismissed, or was killed in ground tests. Ilyushin is not one of them."
Too bad I don't have mod points....
Have you actually read the article you are citing?
Nope, because this is SLASHDOT (in 300 style!)
I think the inventory of satellite changed our life a lot, it is worthy of celebrating.
Sorry, but Joseph Kittinger was there almost a year before Gagarin, and he didn't need a spaceship to do it. On August 16, 1960, Colonel Kittinger jumped out of a hot air balloon at over 100,000 ft with nothing but his gargantuan balls of steel attracting the earth towards their center of mass at half the speed of sound. You will never meet anyone as badass as Colonel Kittinger.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hcT8lKKpeXs
Yes, he jumped from a balloon at 31,200 m up, this is nowhere near the Kármán line at 100,000 m which is commonly defined as the edge of space.
Greylisting is to SMTP as NAT is to IPv4
Here's a free comic book related to this event: CBZ or PDF
Bending spoons in heaven.
The problem is that he died in 2010 ... a man in space that survived would the a hero of the Soviet Union ...
Yuri got there first
Puteulanus fenestra mortis
I think this is the primary scientific/engineering landmark of the 20th century, followed distantly by the Internet.
not as the much celebrated moon missions by the US
... bending spoons in zero G heaven.
Wan Hu was the first man in space: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wan_Hu :)
The page http://www.arissat1.org/v3/ includes the transmission time in UTC and information on some of the other telemtry channels. They begin Monday 11 April 2011 at 14:30 UTC and continue until 10:30 UTC on 13 April 2011. I just tried the 145.950 MHz FM downlink as it passed over Australia without luck, but was using a fairly crappy wideband scanner antenna indoors. I might give it a try tomorrow with a 150MHz antenna which is closest narrowband antenna I've got.
They're no longer your enemy. And Yuri did an amazing thing, the soviets performed an amazing feat. Yes, that should be celebrated, and the thousands who died in the cold war wouldn't think otherwise (I am equally able to spout unfounded statements about what soldiers would or would not do).
If it rhymes it must be true.
Yuri did an amazing thing
Not to be pedantic, but Yuri didn't actually do anything. Vostok 1 was fully automatic from lift-off to bail out.
Some people don't have their head so far up their ass that they can't celebrate a great achievement of mankind unless they did it. The Soviets one-upped you. You one-upped them with Apollo. The world moved forward. Not everything has to be about you.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
No.
That's why - http://img-fotki.yandex.ru/get/4513/strebkov1976.2/0_5c0f3_6f23fd15_XL
Not to be pedantic, but Yuri didn't actually do anything. Vostok 1 was fully automatic from lift-off to bail out.
Well, he didn't shit his space suit(probably, I don't know if the Soviets released any records on that one). So that's gotta be worth SOMETHING.
Monstar L
'Our civilization'? I was under the impression that everyone on this planet belongs to 'our civilization' and thus all our great accomplishments are worthy of celebration. Space race? Enemies? What time are you living in exactly? Would you prefer for scientific and engineering achievements not to happen, unless they belong to your country, serving your 'nation'? I better stop, this is getting too close to Godwin territory.
Happy 50th space anniversary... (although I think that it's a little hypocritical to celebrate 50 revolutions of the earth around the sun, when the whole point of it is to be less earth-bound).
-- In Soviet Russia...Rockets launch you!
What time are you living in exactly?
Well, for the purposes of this discussion, 1961 seems like a reasonable context. At the time, no one in the US was celebrating.
Would you prefer for scientific and engineering achievements not to happen, unless they belong to your country, serving your 'nation'?
The Manhattan Project was an incredible scientific and engineering achievement by any measure, but whether it's something to to celebrated depends a lot on which side of the war you happened to be on.
It was this guy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladimir_Ilyushin
Have you actually read the article you are citing?
There are times when I think slashdot should have a football (ok, soccer) yellow/red card system for particularly stupid and/or misleading posts. But then that wouldn't exactly encourage the advertisers as on any one day about half the readership would be banned.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
This video recreation is amazing: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RKs6ikmrLgg
Some translation of conversation just before flight between Korolev an Gagarin:
Korolev: Yuri, then I want you just to recall that after a moment's willingness to take place six minutes and will start before the flight so that you do not worry. Reception.
Gagarin: I understand, I am perfectly calm!
Queens: There's a packing tube - lunch, dinner and breakfast.
Gagarin: Clear
Korolev: Sausage, Bean there, and jam for tea. 63 pieces, you will be thick.
Gagarin: heh heh
Korolev: After arrival, eat everything at once - instructs Korolev.
->>Gagarin retains a sense of humor:
Gagarin: Main thing there is sausages to vodka drink with.
Everyone laughs
Korolev: Damn, and he writes all, the bastard! - Jokingly resents Korolev, knowing that the tape of Gagarin captures every word.
Everyone laughs
Original you can find in http://www.x-libri.ru/elib/innet170/00000001.htm ;))
sorry for bad translation
Doesn't it seem strange to celebrate what was, after all, a major loss for our civilization? The fact that we lost both opening chapters of the space race (Sputnik 1 and Vostok 1) is a national shame, which should be burned into our memory to be sure, but celebrated? Hardly.
Celebrating the victories of our enemies is like spitting on the graves of the hundreds of thousands who died in the cold war.
I suppose you're still pissed off that the Chinese invented gunpowder three thousand years ago?
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Yuri did an amazing thing
Not to be pedantic, but Yuri didn't actually do anything. Vostok 1 was fully automatic from lift-off to bail out.
Yeah, and Neil Armstrong was just a glorified pilot. I've been on holidays several times on planes, what's so special about the Moon?
Talk about sour grapes.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
His balloon was not a hot air balloon. It was filled with a lifting gas, either helium or hydrogen. Operating a hot air balloon at that altitude would require bringing along oxygen for the burner, which would increase overall weight and decrease altitude. Also, Gagarin orbited the planet in space. Kitinger explored the upper atmosphere in a high-altitude balloon. Both achievements were equally dangerous and impressive, but they are not the same.
The fact that we lost both opening chapters of the space race
The fact that you had a space race is a national shame on both sides.
Imagine if engineers and scientists on each side had been allowed to say to the other, "Dude, let's work together on this one."
And before you respond with the obvious, how many of these engineers and scientists were doing it for the love and glory of mother Russia / America, rather than because they wanted to explore space?
Celebrating the victories of our enemies is like spitting on the graves of the hundreds of thousands who died in the cold war.
Deliberately misinterpreting the notions of both "enemy" and "cold war" is like spitting on the graves of the hundreds of thousands who died in the cold war.
Trololo, molotov 303.
Indeed, everything we have today have been touched by achivements from all corners of the earth, be it ancient greek, medival muslim/christian societies, indian and chineese.
We wouldnt have any renaissance or even better the enlightment age if the munks didn't have anything to work on.
And today, the notion of several civilizations is completely irrelevant, we are tied as one on a global scale in more ways then just political and economical factors...good and bad.
My -1 Troll is actually a +1 funny. And my -1 flame is actually a +1 insightfull.
On August 16, 1960, Colonel Kittinger jumped out of a hot air balloon at over 100,000 ft
Yes, he jumped from a balloon at 31,200 m up, this is nowhere near the KÃrmÃn line at 100,000 m which is commonly defined as the edge of space.
You must excuse him, he works for NASA...
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
hello, 2006.
... listening to prerecorded messages from the satellite as it orbits ...
It was all a fake! Well, at least we have Buzz Aldrin, ready to turn any impertinent folk's face into a Picasso, if the journalist claims that the Moon Landing was a fake. If I had traveled to the Moon and back, I would also be so onery, in case someone asked me if it was a fake. Oh, you could check it yourselves . . . one of the Moon missions left a mirror on the surface of the Moon. All you need to do, is to shine a laser on it.
Oh, and one more thing. The US Space Program was really tits up . . . even Werner von Braun had to turn to Walt Disney for support. When Sputnik and Gagarin went up, JFK got his ass in gear.
Something to the state of the times in the world way back when, from Ice Station Zebra:
David Jones: The Russians put our camera made by *our* German scientists and your film made by *your* German scientists into their satellite made by *their* German scientists.
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
There is a song about commemorating the event here http://geekpop.bandcamp.com/track/radio-gagarin
Professor Karmadillo Songs of Science
Just a thought: does anyone outside of your civilization regard the entire planet as "our civilization"? Western ideas aren't as universal as you might have been mislead into thinking.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
Scientific and free-thinking communities generally don't adhere to the same bullshit "THERE IS OUR ENEMY!" rhetoric as politicians and the ignorant masses they lead.
Science is quite separate from cultural values and ideologies. Breakthroughs can be of benefit to all factions of our human civilization. Also, 'western ideas' is a very broad term. I don't find it particularly meaningful, seeing as even among the 'western countries' there are numerous disagreements on basic issues, such as the structuring of society and economy. It is difficult to take such nationalistic squabbling in the name of ideology seriously, as the ideological makeup and the entire culture of a country can shift and transform over the course of only two generations, while such achievements persist as foundation for everyone to build on, when the original enmities are long dead.
Or, if you don't want to sit at home listening to the radio, you can see if there is a Yuri's Night party near you. Most were over the weekend, but there are still a few the night of.
Also, it's the anniversary of the first US space shuttle launch.
Build it, and they will come^Hplain.
Science is quite separate from cultural values and ideologies.
Another Western idea. Seriously, you don't even think to question the foundations of your thinking...such as if members of other cultures think the same way as you and share your Western values.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
"You"? I don't think the guy you're replying to had anything to do with the space programs.
Or nuclear energy.
Celebrating the victories of our enemies is like spitting on the graves of the hundreds of thousands who died in the cold war.
Says the guy who picked Stalin's forgien minister for a nickname.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
Today is the day NASA is expected to announce who will receive the retired space shuttles.
I would also like to recognize Sergei Korolev, a name that's sadly unknown in the United States, Without him, there might never have been a space race, or satellites, or a man on the moon, etc. He's the guy who achieved the miracle of talking Kruschev into a space program. He also taught himself rocketry, worked his way through school as a common laborer, served time in Stalin's gulags, and headed the team that recreated the V-2 rocket in the Soviet Union after the War.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Sergei Korolev
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Yeah, and Neil Armstrong was just a glorified pilot. I've been on holidays several times on planes, what's so special about the Moon?
Looks like an explanation is in order. Among certain groups, there is a tradition of grumbling about the attention given to the "meat in the seat", when the *real* accomplishment is designing, building, launching, and guiding the spacecraft housing said passenger.
In other words, you rise to the top of the engineering game, launch a rocket to the frickin' moon, and some jock still comes along and grabs the spotlight.
It's pretty much only the Russians still launching men/women into space. The US Space program is essentially, over.
NASA's plans are up in the air, muddled and without focus, liable to change on political whim, and even when they go forward, it will be hopelessly underfunded and probably a disaster.
Meanwhile, the Russians are using pretty much the exact same technology they were 50 years ago, and continuing to launch. NASA has to buy seats on the next few years of flights if we want to get anybody into or out of the ISS.
Maybe SpaceX will change things for the better, but what I find so sad is that the USA went to the moon, and now our country is just a shadow of it's former self, bloated, dull, and stupid. We're the Roman Empire waiting to fall. Nero is fiddling.
Here's to Yuri and Valentina though. I remember pointing out on Slashdot years ago, when Star Trek Enterprise premeired, how the title sequence avoided the Russians, even though it was trying to show the advancement of human space flight.
I suggest someone change that title sequence, because all the advancement in that area is coming from someplace else, Russia, China, India -- but likely NOT the USA.
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
Not to take away from Gagarin and the rest of the Soviet space program's accomplishment of putting a man in space, orbiting the earth, and returning safely, but it's important to remember he may not have been the first man in space.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost_Cosmonauts
Considering the memory hole that the Soviet Union was, it's impossible to say if any of those are real or not (some are obviously hoaxes); but it's equally impossible to disprove at least some of them.
God invented whiskey so the Irish would not rule the world.
Imagine if engineers and scientists on each side had been allowed to say to the other, "Dude, let's work together on this one."
They wouldn't have received any funding. Let's recap. Goddard basically created modern rocketry. No one would fund him. He created the then definitive works on the subject. WWII started and his work was basically ignored by the allies despite his efforts. Germany took his efforts and created the stepping stones for modern missiles, rockets, and manned flight. It was funded by war. Post WWII, Germans taken in by both the US and Russia created the manned flight programs, which in turn were funded by war or the fear of war. Remember, manned flight was an excuse to justify massive spending to create ICMBs.
So basically, "working together" almost never receives funding unless there is yet another underlying cause allowing the first to be used as a public excuse.
Hell, the US-German program was so successful and the US program was so unsuccessful, the US-German program was literally mothballed and prevented from launching so as to allow the pure-US effort a chance as well as to allow the Russian's time to actually launch Sputnik to as to create an internal overflight precedence. Once Sputnik was launched, which created much ire and fear of the US public, much to the surprise of the US Cabinet, and after repeated US failures, the German program was removed from mothballs. The US-German program was taken directly from mothballs to the launch pad, and successfully launched. The US-German program was mothballed roughly a year before Sputnik was launched into space.
He got in. That's amazing enough.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Doesn't it seem strange to celebrate what was, after all, a major loss for our civilization? The fact that we lost both opening chapters of the space race (Sputnik 1 and Vostok 1) is a national shame, which should be burned into our memory to be sure, but celebrated? Hardly.
Celebrating the victories of our enemies is like spitting on the graves of the hundreds of thousands who died in the cold war.
I suppose you're still pissed off that the Chinese invented gunpowder three thousand years ago?
The funniest thing is the guy's handle is "molotov303", so he named his online persona after a protege of Stalin. Nice going, comrade!
With the first link, the chain is forged.
2006? Is that you? I must warn you about an earthquake in haiti and another one in Japan!!!! Google for it!
When is that going to happen?
(Obviously without the aid of NON-AFRICANS)...
Yuri's Night folks are giving up copies of Martian Summer for a limited time. They're trying to create a space review mob to get space topics trending. Here is the link if you are interested: http://yurisnight.net/2011/04/yuri%E2%80%99s-night-and-martian-summer-the-millions-and-millions-give-away/
Yuri did an amazing thing
Not to be pedantic, but Yuri didn't actually do anything. Vostok 1 was fully automatic from lift-off to bail out.
He risked his life to prove it would work. That scores a fair bit higher than a computer-desk-critic.
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
Eagerly hoping to hear something!
73, KB7UJR
When you sympathize with stupidity, you start thinking like an idiot.
If there is one thing that is amazing is there are (were) celebrations of a Russian (or precisely Soviet) space accomplishment at a NASA facility. This was last year at NASA Ames Research Center, this year budget issues prevented this year's Yuri's Night but they had Yuri's Education Day (http://ynba.org/2011/).
Last year's event had all kinds of people you typically don't see at a NASA facility. Plus the music was really loud with all the flashing lights, etc. in same building that housed research aircraft (XV15, ER-2, QSRA which are all now long gone). And sometimes the smoke you smell coming from certain groups that is not cigarette or stage smoke. I asked some 20-somethings of what they think of it all, generally they see Gagarin's flight not as a competition between two countries but his flight was the evolutionary step of all mankind.
So here we are 50 years since Yuri's flight, and the big announcement is what museums will contain the Space Shuttles! It seems we all succumbed to being flatlanders. Only looking straight ahead (for profits) or looking down (for oil) instead of looking up, out, and beyond.
mfwright@batnet.com
To be fair, the handle could come from the Finnish drink named after same protege.
Analogies don't equal equalities, they are merely somewhat analogous.
True
"Can Aliens destroy earth before we even realize it.? Noot. But humans can!!!"
Not true. Orthodox Church existed just fine during the USSR. It even had official state support, even during Stalin's reign.
That's not a Western idea, as it is not an idea at all. It's a fact that is independent of 'Western values'. While some cultures don't see anything as separate from their ideology or religion, that does nothing to bind the purely scientific results, once they become available. They might be glorified and used by a particular ideology in a certain way, but as I explained in my previous post, ideologies and cultural values are temporary cruft, easily brushed from the scientific achievements they birthed, once they die off.
Soviet Union, most assuredly, was a child of and a part of Western (European) civilization, rooted in the same history stemming from Greeks and Romans and Judeo-Christian religious tradition. It was an implementation of some of the more extreme ideas, sure, but those ideas were of European philosophers, and people implementing them had education largely in European tradition (you know - Latin, Greek, natural philosophy...).
French and Germans have fought numerous times as well. That doesn't mean that they do not belong to the same civilization.
Yuri knew full well that he could end up like this, and still went ahead.
Well, for the purposes of this discussion, 1961 seems like a reasonable context. At the time, no one in the US was celebrating.
If so, that doesn't speak too well for US, but I find it hard to believe. The Apollo landing was definitely celebrated in USSR (by common folk who were interested in such matters, anyway).
As well, I don't know about 1961, but this dates to 1971.
"No I didn't see God.I looked and looked, but I didn't see God." - Yuri Gagarin, answering a question of a foreign journalist about the flight.
I tried to pick it up as it went over Portland, OR tonight (23:34 local time) with a 2 Meter radio and a 4 element 144 MHz yagi sitting indoors on a tripod. ISS got up to 40 degrees elevation but no sign of a signal. Checking a few forums, nobody seems to have heard anything from the satellite so you're not alone. There seems to be an unconfirmed report on the funcube group that the batteries went flat, but I have yet to see any official statement from AMSAT or the arissat home page.