William Collins, pp.512, 20
To an observant outsider, the Soviets might have appeared to have developed an oddly intolerant attitude towards stray dogs. Every so often throughout the late 1950s, a fresh pack of homeless mongrel bitches was picked off the streets of Moscow and transported to a remote region of Kazakhstan, where they were promptly strapped into the nose of a ballistic missile and fired into space. If they survived till re-entry, they would likely be blown up by a remotely detonated on-board bomb designed to prevent their earthbound remains from falling into enemy territory. It was, as the phrase goes, a dog’s life.
Yuri Gagarin – poster boy of manned space flight spectator.co.uk - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from spectator.co.uk Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
It’s been 60 years, to the day, since Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin was the first human to travel to space in a tiny capsule attached to an R-7 ballistic missile, a powerful rocket originally designed to carry a 3-5 megaton nuclear warhead. In this new episode marking the 60th anniversary of this historic space flight—the first of its kind—Scientific American talks to Stephen Walker, award-winning filmmaker, director and book author, about the daring launch that changed the course of human history, and charted a map to the skies and beyond. Walker discusses his new book, Beyond: The Astonishing Story of the First Human to Leave Our Planet and Journey into Space , out today, and how Gagarin’s journey—an enormous mission fraught by danger and planned in complete secrecy by the Soviet Union—happened on the heels of a Cold War between the US and the USSR, and sparked a relentless space race between a rising superpower and an a
‘BEYOND: The Astonishing Story of the First Human to Leave Our Planet’ hits shelves in April Sputnik; Pixabay; Stephen Walker/Harper, 2021 The new book details, among other things, the many different stories that made up the Space Race between the USSR and the U.S. in different areas of the world, as well as the enormous risk Gagarin took to make the historic step for mankind.
“In America, it is still the evening of April 11. Millions will be watching their youthful new president, John F. Kennedy, and his glamorous wife Jackie, talk on TV about the challenges of bringing up their young children, Caroline and John, in the White House. In New York’s West Village, an unknown nineteen-year-old Bob Dylan is about to make his professional debut at Gerdie’s Folk City club… Meanwhile, thousands of miles to the east, Gagarin is strapped into his seat while the last bolt is fastened and his hatch is finally closed. Alone in his little sphere, he waits and whis
Yuri Gagarin: The first man in space msn.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from msn.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.