[motor_racer]

Thanks for this post on the anniversary of Americans first setting foot on the moon.

[mrmargaritaville]

Did they have a robot with them that kept saying:
“Danger Will Robinson”

[CaptRon]

For several long minutes, static streamed into Torre Bert, when suddenly Achille hissed “SSSSSSHH!” And then it came through: the voice of the first American in space:

Interesting story up to here. If you can't get the simplest facts straight...

[Titan Magroyne]

bfl

[Born Conservative]

bttt

[Clay Moore]

bttt

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks grey_whiskers for the ping and thanks Renfield for the topic.

There are those who believe that somewhere in the vast blackness of space, about nine billion miles from the Sun, the first human is about to cross the boundary of our Solar System into interstellar space. His body, perfectly preserved, is frozen at -270°C (-454°F); his tiny capsule has been silently sailing away from the Earth at 18,000 mph (29,000km/h) for the last 45 years. He is the original lost cosmonaut, whose rocket went up and, instead of coming back down, just kept on going.

Whoops. Seems like they'd now take credit for this "first", if it were true.

Here's an oldie, I didn't check to see if the link is live or not.

Explorer Hero: Sergei Vladimir Ilyushin, Jr.
by Paul Tsarinsky

On April 7th, 1961, five days before Gagarin's successful flight, Ilyushin was launched and entered orbit. There had been no publicity around the launch. After three orbits Ilyushin lost contact with the mission control engineers on the ground. During the reentry, when he was supposed to eject from the capsule and parachute to safety, Ilyushin was unable to eject (he had lost consciousness as some point during the flight) and made a "hard landing" in the capsule. Ilyushin survived, but was injured.

The USSR under Kruschev (sp?) also made a few attempts to orbit craft, send pictures, and "land" (crash) on Mars, but missed badly. I think there's a description of those on Oberg's website. FWIW, Oberg also dumps all over this Ilyushin story.

[kalee]

ping

[Lancey Howard]

then it came through: the voice of the first American in space:

Uh, except John Glenn was NOT the first American in space. Alan Shepard was. (Although some claim Chuck Yeager went into space in the X-15 long before Shepard's flight.)

The author spins an interesting tale, but he needs to get the basics right.

[The Louiswu]

read this later

[rabidralph]

A couple years ago, NPR posted audio of Gagarin as he said his last words in flight. I don't know if the audio is still online somewhere or not. But here is the NPR story about it.