Cosmonautics Day (Russian: День Космонавтики) is a holiday celebrated every April 12 to commemorate the first manned earth orbit. It was established in the USSR on April 9, 1962.

It is celebrated in honour of the historic first manned space flight made on April 12, 1961 by 27 year old Russian cosmonaut Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin of the USSR, who made one complete orbit around the Earth (lasting 1 h 48 min) aboard the spacecraft Vostok 1.




One of the symbols of détente: the first ever international flight of Soyuz-19 and Apollo manned spacecraft in 1975. Their crews: Alexei Leonov, second row right, Soyuz-19 commander, pilot-cosmonaut of the U.S.S.R. and Hero of the Soviet Union, Valery Kubasov, first row right, flight engineer, pilot-cosmonaut of the U.S.S.R., and Hero of the Soviet Union, and American astronauts: Tom Stafford, Deke Slayton and Vance Brand.



First artificial Earth sputnik (satellite).

On April 12, 1961, Soviet cosmonaut Yury Gagarin became the first person to circle the Earth in a Vostok spacecraft.



Yury Gagarin in the cabin of the spacecraft Vostok.



Launching the Vostok-1 spacecraft



Pilot and cosmonaut Yury Gagarin



Yury Gagarin, the first man in space, in 1961




Yury Gagarin, the world’s first cosmonaut and Hero of the USSR, with spacecraft designer Sergei Korolyov. 1961.

These were men that were pioneers of spaceflight. May there memory and honor live on until the end of time.

Forty years on, Yuri Gagarin's death still a mystery



MOSCOW, March 27 (RIA Novosti) - Forty years after he perished in a plane crash, the death of Yuri Gagarin, the first man in space, remains the subject of speculation and conspiracy theories.

Gagarin died exactly four decades ago, on March 27, 1968, a little under seven years after becoming the first human to fly to space and orbit the Earth. His death came during what should have been a routine practice flight in a MiG-15UTI fighter plane, which crashed near the town of Kirzhach in Central Russia.
Soviet officials made no official announcement as to the cause of the crash and all the details of the accident were archived and marked "Top Secret."
On Thursday, a Russian Air Force official rejected suggestions that a new probe should be launched into Gagarin's death, saying: "No additional investigation is necessary." The Kremlin also turned down an appeal for the case to be reopened in 2007.

The Air Force official also categorically rejected calls for the hermetically-sealed barrels containing the fragments of Gagarin's plane to be reopened.


READ MORE - RIA Novosti - Russia - Forty years on, Yuri Gagarin's death still a mystery

Yay for space exploration pioneers!!!

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"I may not agree with what you have to say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." -Voltaire

"All men are born with a nose and ten fingers, but no one was born with a knowledge of God." -Voltaire

"All murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets." -Voltaire

"Fear follows crime and is its punishment." -You guessed it, Voltaire.

This conversation started in a different thread, so I decided to answer here, in the proper topic:

UShaditComing, many people believed that he was killed by the government due to his extreme popularity.
They say, that Yuri Gagarin was not very obedient, and on number of occasions he told the Soviet leaders that he is a number 1 man in the world, so he could do whatever he wants and that the Soviet leaders better f*ck off....

I think the Soviet leaders, who wanted to maintain the status quo of the Soviet totalitarian system, saw a great threat in his persona, they believed that Yuri Gagarin along can somehow shake up the system which was totally (TOTALLY) controlled by the Communist party and that could lead to an alternative movement inside the whole country. They sure didn't want to see that....

So I believe in the Leonid Brezhnev theory:

The theories as to the 'true' cause of the crash ranged from the plausible to the outlandish: in 1986, a belated inquest suggested that the afterburners of a passing jet may have caused the crash. Others alleged that the then Soviet leader, Leonid Brezhnev, had ordered Gagarin's death due to feelings of envy over the charismatic cosmonaut's popularity.

RIA Novosti - Russia - Forty years on, Yuri Gagarin's death still a mystery

First Secretary of the Communist Party Leonid Brezhnev awarding first cosmonaut Gagarin:



General Utkin Soviet space memorabilia collection.

Here's a present for Comrade Joe:

Superb picture Gov

I have saw it once before on this music video, which is incidently extremely catchy.

YouTube - Fidel Castro

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Viva Fidel

If there ever was in the history of humanity an enemy who was truly universal, an enemy whose acts and moves trouble the entire world, threaten the entire world, attack the entire world in any way or another, that real and really universal enemy is precisely Yankee imperialism

They talk about the failure of socialism but where is the success of capitalism in Africa, Asia and Latin America?

The American astronauts weren't the only ones with "the right stuff" and the contributions made by the Soviet/Russian space program and people like Gagarin and Korolov should be remembered well by all.

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Not a day goes by that I don't see something that reinforces my belief that people are idiots.

I remember watching Gagarin deliver his report in public (it was ceremonial of course) on television as a child. I remember thinking, "how can he salute for so long?"

USSR - October Revolution 1917 - First man in space 1962 and in the meantime the Great Patriotic War. Say what you like but that sort of progress is startling. I wonder if it hadn't been for the Stalinists what might have happened to the former Soviet Union.

My guess is an early collapse. We can all bash them but they did make quicker progress than any state in history. If Trotsky got his way i imagine they would have been to busy trying to encourage revolution in the industrialised world to actually push through socialism in the USSR. Of course i could be totally wrong and Trotsky had proven himself a more than capable war leader in the civil war.

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Viva Fidel

If there ever was in the history of humanity an enemy who was truly universal, an enemy whose acts and moves trouble the entire world, threaten the entire world, attack the entire world in any way or another, that real and really universal enemy is precisely Yankee imperialism

They talk about the failure of socialism but where is the success of capitalism in Africa, Asia and Latin America?