From the MT:
“On Gagarin Anniversary, Putin
Says Russia Must Remain 'Space Power'”
(Children celebrating the 60th
anniversary Monday of Yuri Gagarin becoming the first person in orbit.)
President Vladimir Putin called
on Monday for Russia to remain a great power in space, as the country
celebrated the 60th anniversary of the legendary flight that made Yuri Gagarin
the first person in orbit. Russia's space industry has struggled in recent
years 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 position in space. "In the 21st century, Russia must
retain its status as a nuclear and space power," Putin said in the
televised remarks. "We will analyze
what needs to be done to strengthen our position in this strategic
industry," he said, noting that the space program is "directly
related" to national defense. Putin called for a review of major projects
and a new space development strategy over at least 10 years.
The day of Gagarin's flight is
celebrated every year in Russia as Cosmonautics Day, and this year authorities
pulled out all the stops to mark the 60th anniversary, with round-the-clock
television coverage, murals on high-rises and laser projections of Gagarin's
portrait. For Moscow commuters, the morning started with a broadcast on the
metro of the original report by state news agency TASS about the launch,
followed by Gagarin's legendary words — "Poekhali!" (Let's go) — as
his Vostok spacecraft lifted off.
In a message from the
International Space Station, the four Russians on board saluted "all
earthlings" and hailed Gagarin's accomplishment. "Gagarin's legendary
108-minute flight became an example of heroism for his successors, including
us," said cosmonaut Oleg Novitsky. Vostok took off carrying Gagarin, the
27-year-old son of a carpenter and a dairy farmer, from the Baikonur cosmodrome
in Kazakhstan, then part of the Soviet Union. The flight lasted just 108 minutes, the time
it took to complete one loop around the Earth. Gagarin landed in a potato field
in front of a five-year-old girl, Rita Nurskanova, and her grandmother. In an
interview with newspaper Moskovsky Komsomolets for the anniversary, Nurskanova
said that after seeing a flash of light and a spacesuit, her grandmother
started to pray and wanted to run. Gagarin calmed them down, saying he was
human and "came from the sky," she said. Then her grandmother helped
him unfasten his helmet. Gagarin's now-rusty Vostok capsule is on display at
Moscow's Museum of Cosmonautics where a new exhibition dedicated to his
achievement is set to open on Tuesday. Visitors
will be shown documents, photos and personal belongings, some dating back to
Gagarin's childhood and school years. "This is probably the only surname
that everyone knows, from four-year-old children to people over 80,"
Vyacheslav Klimentov, a historian and the museum's deputy director of research,
told AFP. Gagarin's flight remains a
symbol of the country's dominance in space during the Soviet era. Four years
before Gagarin, the U.S.S.R. had become the first country to send a satellite
into orbit, called Sputnik.
Tough times for space program "That
the first manned flight into space was done by the Soviet Union was very
significant for our state," Tatiana Brazhnikova, a 49-year-old school
teacher, told AFP at the cosmonautics museum. "I feel great pride in this achievement
by the Soviet Union and Russia." But the anniversary also comes at
a difficult time for Russia's space industry. It has suffered a number of
setbacks in recent years, from corruption scandals to lost spacecraft to an
aborted take-off during a manned mission in 2018. Russia's aging Soyuz
rockets are reliable and allow Moscow to remain relevant in the modern space
industry, but the country is struggling to innovate and keep up with other key
players. In a major blow, Russia
last year lost its monopoly for manned ISS launches after reusable rockets from
Elon Musk's Space X, carrying NASA astronauts, successfully docked at the space
station. The head of Russia's Roscosmos space agency, Dmitry Rogozin,
has set a series of ambitious goals for the space program in recent years
despite funding cuts. In a video
message on Monday he insisted that Russia was "on the cusp of very
important changes" that will see next-generation spacecraft and lunar
missions. "We believe in our space, in Russian space," he
said.
^ Yuri Gagarin was the first
Human in Space and we need to remember that. ^
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