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Everything Else => Off Topic => Topic started by: cosworth151 on April 12, 2011, 01:39:12 PM

Title: Yuri's Night 2011
Post by: cosworth151 on April 12, 2011, 01:39:12 PM

50 years ago today, 12 April 1961, Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin became the first person in space. His Vostok 1 spacecraft was launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome and completed one orbit.

The Yuri's Night celebrations begane in 2004.

http://yurisnight.net/ (http://yurisnight.net/)

Today is also the 30th anniversary of the Space Shuttle's first orbital flight. John Young and Robert Crippen flew the Columbia for 37 orbits.

Over the week-end, I asked a number of people to name the first person in space. Sadly, not one person named Gagarin.

Title: Re: Yuri's Night 2011
Post by: Ian on April 12, 2011, 02:16:01 PM

Unbelievable ain't it Cos, but Gagarin was'nt actually the first man into space. The Russians put another man up first as a test but he never orbited the Earth, just up into space and down again. I've been searching for his name but with no luck.

Title: Re: Yuri's Night 2011
Post by: lkjohnson1950 on April 13, 2011, 06:34:12 AM

There have been persistent rumors that Gargarin wasn't the first Russian to orbit Earth, just the first to come back.  :o

Lonny

Title: Re: Yuri's Night 2011
Post by: cosworth151 on April 13, 2011, 12:33:07 PM

Quote from: Ian on April 12, 2011, 02:16:01 PM

Unbelievable ain't it Cos, but Gagarin was'nt actually the first man into space. The Russians put another man up first as a test but he never orbited the Earth, just up into space and down again. I've been searching for his name but with no luck.

The US did that twice. Alan Shepard in Freedom 7 & Gus Grissom in Liberty Bell 7. Both were Mercury spacecraft atop Redstone boosters.