Fiftieth anniversary of manned spaceflight

[Egbert]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-12380744

Yuri Gagarin's single orbit of Earth 50 years ago this month ushered in the era of human spaceflight.
Gagarin's 108-minute flight was another major propaganda coup for the Soviet Union, which had successfully launched the first satellite - Sputnik - in 1957.
The launch on 12 April 1961 took place from what is now Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan

[Egbert]

The first woman in space was Valentina Tereshkova in Vostock 6 on the 16th June 1963.

http://starchild.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/StarChild/whos_who_level2/tereshkova.html

[OneFootInTheGrave]

[Egbert]

OneFoot, what is that?

[OneFootInTheGrave]

Khazak flag... I think they can take the honor of sending the first man into space as we do not have USSR anymore

[onodera]

Baikonur has been leased to Russia for god knows how many years, so... USSR

[Al B. Sure!]

Right now, Kazakhstan is known (wrongly) primarily because of Borat. They need some good PR.

[germanos]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-12380744

Gagarin's 108-minute flight was another major propaganda coup for the Soviet Union

I was taught it was a major scientific breakthrough. Glad to hear it was just propaganda.

[Al B. Sure!]

Yall do know Gagarin wasn't the first, right? He was just the first who survived.

[KrazyHorse]

I was taught it was a major scientific breakthrough. Glad to hear it was just propaganda.

Anybody who thinks that the development of manned spaceflight was a "scientific breakthrough" is an idiot.

[Egbert]

Anybody who thinks that the development of manned spaceflight was a "scientific breakthrough" is an idiot.

Krazyhorse, there seems to be no purpose to your post apart from venting. You are an an egocentric, opinionated self-absorbed tw@t with all the social graces of a feral pig. At the very least you need some sort of anger management course to help you deal with your insane desires to get back at the world.

Do yourself a favour and get help dealing with your psychological problems. You are a deranged and rabid loon of the lowest and vilest sort.

[Al B. Sure!]

I agree but he won't see my post.

See, there's nothing meaningful in that post. I'm pretty sure I know what KH is getting at... that manned spaceflight isn't a breakthrough... this was more of a mere achievement to see if humans can do it and it didn't open up anything as much as discovering nuclear fission or something did. However, why not just express that? It takes a sentence and it makes you not look like a condescending jackass.

Just calling someone an idiot is not meaningful.

[Whoha]

The Soviet Union

[Combat Ingrid]

[MikeH]

No-one can seriously argue with KH can they?

Manned spaceflight is an amazing(ly expensive) engineering feat which relied on a vast accumulation of scientific improvements over many years, mainly in materials science, the physics bit is easy and just needed improvements in computational power. What do people think was the scientific breakthrough?