1961: Soviets win space race (BBC) {Gagarin flight 45th anniversary}

[eppur_se_muova]

The Soviet Union has beaten the USA in the race to get the first man into space.

At just after 0700BST, Major Yuri Alexeyevich Gagarin was fired from the Baikonur launch pad in Kazakhstan, Soviet central Asia, in the space craft Vostok (East).

Major Gagarin orbited the Earth for 108 minutes travelling at more than 17,000 miles per hour (27,000 kilometres per hour) before landing at an undisclosed location.

The Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev has congratulated Major Gagarin on his achievement.



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more: http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/april/12/newsid_2477000/2477715.stm

[KurtNYC]

1. Yes but we won the Moon race

by quite a bit.

[Zynx]

3. The beat us in the economic ruin race and by a big margin too.

Reagan was going for it, but they got there first.

[eppur_se_muova]

5. Hey, we're not done yet!

We may not have done it first, but we'll do it best!

[Zynx]

12. That's what we usually do.

Not always the first, but I'll be damned if we don't do it the best!

[cureautismnow]

6. The Manned Moon Race, that is ...

The Soviet Union was actually first in about everything else, except sticking a human being on the moon. For instance, the Ruskies sent the first man-made object to the moon.

Godspeed, Armstrong, Aldrin, and Collins. They did us proud. :patriot:

[VelmaD]

2. I heard a truly assinine comment this morning on the news...

it's also apparently the 25th anniversary of the first Space Shuttle mission. The idjit on the tv morning show referred to it as the most dangerous space mission ever undertaken. My reaction..."tell that to Uri Gagarin".

[smitty]

4. You can't tell poor Yuri anything, he's dead.

[VelmaD]

7. I know...it was just the sheer idiocy...

of thinking a Space Shuttle flight in the 1980s could possibly be more dangerous than Yuri (and his many cosmonaut comrades) going up and then landing (read crashing) on the ground (no wimpy water landings for the Soviets) and hoping to survive. The cultural myopia was staggering.

[WI_DEM]

8. Nothing but propaganda on both sides

I'm not saying we haven't gotten some scientific advantage out of all the space exploration, but the race to the moon, ect during the cold war was nothing but propaganda pure and simple. Just think of how those billions and billions of dollars could have been used to help people on earth--in the USA and USSR.

[FloridaPat]

9. Forgotten as usual - USSR had first woman is space. Beat US by 20 years.

Sure is great to be in the greatest democracy in the world isn't it. Always caring for everyone no matter the sex or amount of money one makes.

[JHB]

10. Mostly because Valentina Tereshkova was only there for propaganda value...

Yeah, they beat us, if you call one token flight and then 20 years of nothing "beating".

At least she's not mentioned in the same breath as the dog they sent up.

[eppur_se_muova]

11. Also because US flatly refused to consider women astronaut candidates.

Only military test pilots were considered. Women couldn't be test pilots because the services didn't allow it. NASA considered this to be "non-discriminatory". For the history behind this, see "The Mercury Thirteen" by Martha Ackman.