CommanderFrank
Cat Can't Scratch It
- Joined
- May 9, 2000
- Messages
- 75,399
April the 12th marked a double remembrance for manned spaceflight. In 1961, Russian Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin climbed into his capsule and became the first man in space. Exactly 20 years later to the day, the US launched the space shuttle Columbia, the first of many flights of the reusable spacecraft.
At a little after 9am local time, Yuri Gagarin became the first person in history to leave our atmosphere, riding Vostok 1 into orbit.