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."

Comments

Still counting in earth-years?

[captainpanic]

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!

Re:But he wasn't the first guy in space.

[Kjella]

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...