Yuri Gagarin's space flight 50th anniversary: the view from Russia

As one of the proudest and most memorable moments in Russia's history, Yuri Gagarin's space flight, 50 years ago today, has been the subject of much discussion among the Russian media and its political leaders. But what are they saying about it?

The Russian president has spoken of Gagarin's achievement in glowing terms. “I believe it was a truly revolutionary event, a highly symbolic one", he said during an interview with Chinese television.

"It was a tremendous achievement of Soviet cosmonautics, which divided the world into ‘before’ and ‘after’ the flight, what has been termed the ‘space era’. A lot has been accomplished since then: numerous space missions, the moon landing, many countries have trained their own cosmonauts. Gagarin’s flight will be remembered as a fundamental landmark in the evolution of human genius, because making this first step was crucially important. I am proud of the fact that it was my country that took this first step. Undoubtedly, all of us - not only Russian people but also our friends abroad - will celebrate the 50th anniversary of the space flight by our distinguished first cosmonaut Yury Gagarin.”

It was a most impressive achievement by any measure. It got us off our collective butts.

Sad, thanks to the unmeasurable ineptness of our government, we are now unable to launch humans into space without Russian vehicles.

Gads, I really, really hate liberals.

The Soviet Union did a couple of dogs and had a few mishaps before Gagarin strapped on his booster. Based on what I've read, he had a few problems but they were minor such as being in a lesser orbit than predicted. There weren't any life threatening problems though.

After Gagarin, there has been 517 other humans to have left the Earthly cradle. That's not counting the three rookies aboard STS-51L Challenger that blew up. Counting them there would be 520. That is a small number of people that have made the trip Up There. What a list to be on.

This is also the 30th anniversary of the first flight of the Space Shuttle series, STS-1 Columbia. An ironic thing about that is that the commander of Columbia, John Young, was walking on the moon during Apollo 16, when he got the word that the senate approved money for the shuttle. Who knew that nine years later Young would be STS-1’s commander.

One other anniversary, albeit a minor one, is that this is the 41st anniversary of the only normal full day in space the crew of Apollo 13 would experience during their entire flight.

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