Yuri's Night Commemorates First Manned Space Flight on April 12

by Yuliya Talmazan | April 12, 2009 at 12:01 pm

217 views | 0 Recommendations | 0 comments

Not many people outside Russia and the former Soviet Republics know him, but Yuri Gagarin was the first human being in space, having paved the way for hundreds others to explore the final frontier. On April 12, 1961, Vostok 1 spacecraft took Yuri Gagarin to orbit to launch not just the first human into space, but to start a new era in the advancement of human knowledge. Since Gagarin’s historic flight, nearly 500 people from 39 nations have gone into space, including over 50 female astronauts. But pushing the boundary of space exploration always came with a cost. Twenty-two astronauts have perished in space accidents during operations or training for space flights since the start of the manned space flight era: in 1967 Vladimir Komarov died on board of Soyuz 1, Michael J. Adams died while piloting X-15, the crew of Soyuz 11, Georgi Dobrovolski, Viktor Patsayev and Vladislav Volkov died due to air leak in 1971, space shuttles Challenger and Columbia perished with 7 crew members on board each in 1986 and 2003 respectively.

Yuri Gagarin – who was he?

But who is Yuri Gagarin and how did he find his way to being the first human in space? Many say Gagarin’s warm smile and natural charm made him instantly loveable. However, his background was what made the Soviet government think him to be the perfect candidate to go down in history as the first Soviet citizen in space. A son of peasants, he comes from a small village of Klushino in Eastern Russia. While studying in a technical high school, he developed interest in flying and learned to fly a light aircraft. He than graduated from the pilot school, and in 1960 was selected to be on a 20-member flying squad of the Soviet Space Program. He was the one finally selected for the first manned mission on April 12. After his historic flight, Gagarin toured across many countries. He was restrained from flying however, out of Soviet government’s fears that the space legend might die prematurely, which was exactly what happened when Gagarin’s MiG-15UTI crashed on March 27 in 1968, killing him and a co-pilot.

Space exploration - than and now

Much progress has been made since the times of Gagarin’s first attempt to go into orbit: the creation of the first reusable manned spacecraft and satellite navigation systems, first and only landing on the Moon, first space station, free ranging Mars rovers and not least first private human spaceflight on board SpaceShipOne and the launch of space tourism program. Outer pace is no longer a secluded place that it once was during Gagarin’s time when only the trained astronauts had a remote chance of going into space. Now, the so-called “commercial astronauts,” or space tourists are part of the space industry reality, as is the issue of space pollution. We have gone from zero metal, electronics and wiring in our orbit to a space dump filled with orbital junk in the matter of 48 years. Perhaps now is a good time to reflect and remind ourselves of the true meaning of Gagarin’s flight and put checks on the breadth of our space activities, so our grandchildren will still celebrate rather than curse Yuri’s Day a hundred years from now.