On the 12th April 1961, or so the story goes, a young man stood in front of his vehicle and urinated.
Nothing unusual you may say, but this young man's name was Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin, an officer in the then Soviet Air Force and his particular mode of transport was about to make him a legend.
Vostok 1 left the surface of the Earth and turned Gagarin into the first human in space. He orbited the Earth and returned safely, drifting safely down after parachuting from his capsule. The capsule itself 'dusted' down onto the ground.
Approximately one month later an American by the name of Alan Bartlet Shepard followed Gagarin, but this was no orbital flight. Shepard's historic journey lasted approximately 15 minutes from start to finish, ending with him splashing down with his Mercury capsule into the Atlantic Ocean.
Space travel as we know it, had begun.
I wasn't born when these particular events took place. But as I got older and read about them, they filled me with awe and wonder.
What was it like to be a spaceman? What was it like to look upon the Earth from a vantage point so high you could see this silver, blue and green ball of life in its full glory?
I would never know, but I could dream.
My interest in space and space travel goes back a long way. My first real recollection of anything to do with space, outside of the Star Trek universe, was a television programme on the BBC.
The programme featured an interview with one of the crew of Skylab, America's first and so far only, space station.
Dr Owen Kay Garriott was selected by NASA in 1965 to be one of the six Scientist-Astronauts to take part in the space programme. His first space-flight, the Skylab 3 mission in 1973, set a new world record for duration of approximately 60 days, more than double the previous record. Extensive experimental studies of our sun, of earth resources and in various life sciences relating to human adaptation to weightlessness were made made during this flight.
Here was a real spaceman. A real 'star voyager' This man was actually going to voyage into space. Okay, he wasn't going to the moon or to Mars, but he was going to a space station. A real life space station.
Living in the 'west' all I really heard about were the flights of NASA, I never really heard much about the Soviet exploits. It wasn't until 1975 that the Russian space programme really came into my consciousness.
I did of course know about the Russians, I learned about them from my book.
When I was about 8 years I asked for a book. I begged for a book. That book was called Look-It Up Book of Space edited by by Ira M. Freeman. I still have that book and still treat it with the reverence it deserves.
What amazed me was the number of times the Russians were mentioned. After all, it wasn't as if they were the Americans. So what made them so special?
Apart from being the country that put the first man into orbit, what else had they done?
After Vostok 1 there was Vostok 2 carrying cosmonaut Gherman Titov into orbit for a full day. This was done to study the effects of a more prolonged period of weightlessness on the human body. Titov orbited the earth over 17 times, exceeding the single orbit of Yuri Gagarin on Vostok 1 − as well as the suborbital space-flights of Alan Shepard and after him, Virgil I. 'Gus' Grissom aboard Mercury-Redstone 3 and 4 missions.
Next there was Vostok 3 and Vostok 4 which were launched a day apart on trajectories that brought the spacecraft within approximately 6.5 km (4.0 mi) of one another.
The cosmonauts aboard the two spaceships also communicated with each other via radio, the first ship-to-ship communications in space. These missions marked the first time that more than one manned spacecraft was in orbit at the same time.
Okay, apart from the first man in space, the first orbital flights, the first time two space had been in orbit and the first orbital communication, what else have the Russians ever done for space travel?
Well... on 16th June 1963 Vostok 6 was the first human space-flight mission to carry a woman, cosmonaut Valentina Vladimirovna Tereshkova, into space. This also made her the first civilian in space.
To be honest the number of achievements by the Soviet Space Agency is pretty impressive, and you want to learn more check out the website of the Russian Federal Space Agency and for a bit of balance check out the website of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.
Have fun.
My interest in space and space travel goes back a long way. My first real recollection of anything to do with space, outside of the Star Trek universe, was a television programme on the BBC.
The programme featured an interview with one of the crew of Skylab, America's first and so far only, space station.
Dr Owen Kay Garriott was selected by NASA in 1965 to be one of the six Scientist-Astronauts to take part in the space programme. His first space-flight, the Skylab 3 mission in 1973, set a new world record for duration of approximately 60 days, more than double the previous record. Extensive experimental studies of our sun, of earth resources and in various life sciences relating to human adaptation to weightlessness were made made during this flight.
Here was a real spaceman. A real 'star voyager' This man was actually going to voyage into space. Okay, he wasn't going to the moon or to Mars, but he was going to a space station. A real life space station.
Living in the 'west' all I really heard about were the flights of NASA, I never really heard much about the Soviet exploits. It wasn't until 1975 that the Russian space programme really came into my consciousness.
I did of course know about the Russians, I learned about them from my book.
When I was about 8 years I asked for a book. I begged for a book. That book was called Look-It Up Book of Space edited by by Ira M. Freeman. I still have that book and still treat it with the reverence it deserves.
What amazed me was the number of times the Russians were mentioned. After all, it wasn't as if they were the Americans. So what made them so special?
Apart from being the country that put the first man into orbit, what else had they done?
After Vostok 1 there was Vostok 2 carrying cosmonaut Gherman Titov into orbit for a full day. This was done to study the effects of a more prolonged period of weightlessness on the human body. Titov orbited the earth over 17 times, exceeding the single orbit of Yuri Gagarin on Vostok 1 − as well as the suborbital space-flights of Alan Shepard and after him, Virgil I. 'Gus' Grissom aboard Mercury-Redstone 3 and 4 missions.
Next there was Vostok 3 and Vostok 4 which were launched a day apart on trajectories that brought the spacecraft within approximately 6.5 km (4.0 mi) of one another.
The cosmonauts aboard the two spaceships also communicated with each other via radio, the first ship-to-ship communications in space. These missions marked the first time that more than one manned spacecraft was in orbit at the same time.
Okay, apart from the first man in space, the first orbital flights, the first time two space had been in orbit and the first orbital communication, what else have the Russians ever done for space travel?
Well... on 16th June 1963 Vostok 6 was the first human space-flight mission to carry a woman, cosmonaut Valentina Vladimirovna Tereshkova, into space. This also made her the first civilian in space.
To be honest the number of achievements by the Soviet Space Agency is pretty impressive, and you want to learn more check out the website of the Russian Federal Space Agency and for a bit of balance check out the website of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.
Have fun.
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