Fifty years ago, April 12, 1961, cosmonaut (space traveller) Yuri Gagarin did what only "muttniks" had done: gone up into space and into orbit around Earth, if just for, relatively, a moment. A salute to him and all the cosmonauts, astronauts, spationautes, taikonauts and their ground crews.
The Soviet Sputnik and Vostok space programs spurred US policymakers into action; hence JFK's "ten years to the Moon" -- which turned out to be doable by 1969.
Now, Russians and Americans work together in space matters, perhaps not in perfect harmony, but at least with a more cooperative spirit.
Back in the 1950s and 1960s, the Soviets sent up dozens of muttniks, including Belka and Stelka (compare the name games with JFK's Fiddle and Faddle), Laika, Senzhinka, Pchelka, Mushka, Damka, Krasavka, Chernushka and Zvezdochka. The Americans preferred to send chimps up. I once met a retired chimp astronaut at a special open air zoo, come to think of it.
Today's Rune: Inititation.
3 comments:
It is not yet obvious that there are things we can do in space better by sending people up there than by sending up only our machines. So far, the only thing that human spaceflight is uniquely capable of doing is demonstrating the possibilities of human spaceflight. But there is sufficient interest, and thus sufficient political and economic support, that we will continue to send up modest numbers of space travellers in Yuri Gagarin's footsteps. Over time we may find new reasons to send up people in more than modest numbers.
Erik-Sputnik is the world I could not think of for my crossword puzzle the other day...Brain strain!
Russia faced so many difficulties to reach this position. If Russia didn't split in different countries no doubt it is the world's most powerful country. Russia come to this position with their (own) men power but America come to its position with different countries people effort so Russia is the greatest country like India.
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