How the space race starting gun was fired By REN QI in Moscow | China Daily | Updated: 2021-04-27 07:25 Share
Gagarin s landmark mission marked 60 years on
Sixty years ago this month, young Russian Yuri Gagarin became the first man to travel in space, beginning his mission by shouting poekhali, which translates as let s go .
The Vostok 3KA-2 spacecraft carrying Gagarin, the 27-year-old son of a carpenter and a dairy farmer, took off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, then part of the Soviet Union, on April 12, 1961.
Although the landmark mission lasted just one hour and 48 minutes, it fired the starting gun in the space race in the 1960s, which culminated with United States astronaut Neil Armstrong becoming the first person to step on the moon in 1969.
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Sputnik International
Putin touts space power as Gagarin hailed
AFP, MOSCOW
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday called for the nation to remain a great power in space, as it celebrated the 60th anniversary of the legendary flight that made Yuri Gagarin the first person in orbit.
Russia’s space industry has struggled and been hit by a series of mishaps, but the sending of the first human into space on April 12, 1961, remains a major source of national pride.
After visiting a memorial in southern Russia at the site where Gagarin landed after his 108-minute trip around the Earth, Putin told his government to do more to maintain Moscow’s standing in space.