Russia yesterday marked a half-century since cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first man in space, the greatest victory of Soviet science which expanded human horizons and is still remembered by Russians as their finest hour.
In Moscow at 9:07am on April 12, 1961, Gagarin uttered the famous words “let’s go” as the Vostok rocket, with him squeezed into a tiny capsule at the top, blasted off from the south of the then-Soviet republic of Kazakhstan.
After a voyage lasting just 108 minutes that granted the 27-year-old carpenter’s son historical immortality, Gagarin ejected from his capsule and parachuted down into a field in the Saratov region of central Russia.
From that moment on, his life, and the course of modern space exploration, would never be the same again.
“This was one of the greatest events of the 20th century,” said Anatoly Perminov, the head of Russia’s space agency. “His flight opened a new page in the development of humankind.”
The Soviet Union scored its greatest propaganda victory over the US, spurring its Cold War foe to eventually retake the lead in the space race by putting men on the moon in 1969.
Russia’s modern day rulers are using the anniversary to remind Russians of its past achievements and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev was to make a visit to mission control outside Moscow and talk with current astronauts.
Later in the day, he was to give a keynote speech on space exploration in the Kremlin that is expected to give an impulse for the future of the Russian space program 50 years on.
In contrast to the tense battle of the 1960s, space is increasingly a matter of international cooperation with the International Space Station (ISS) a joint effort between Russia, the US and other partners.
Although Russia will this year take full responsibility for taking astronauts to the ISS when the shuttles are retired, its space program has seen its share of problems in the run-up to the anniversary.
Three navigation satellites crashed into the ocean after launch, the latest launch for the ISS was delayed by a week because of a technical problem and the government has already said that Perminov is on the way out.
The anniversary has also prompted a release of information from Russia about the most mysterious aspects of Gagarin’s life, most notably his still unsolved death in a plane crash in 1968.
Declassified documents released last week said his jet likely maneuvered sharply to avoid a weather balloon, prompting it to crash in a region outside Moscow and killing Gagarin and instructor Vladimir Seryogin.
Former Soviet space workers have also recalled how all those involved in the space flight were forced by the Soviet Union to lie for years that he had landed in his capsule and not by parachute as was the case in reality.
This was because they feared the orbit would not be counted as valid by the international organization monitoring spaceflight.
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