The 50th Anniversary of the first man in space is marked

Russia's president on Tuesday pledged to uphold the nation's pre-eminence in space. President Dmitry Medvedev was speaking on a visit to Mission Control outside Moscow as the country marked the 50th anniversary of cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin's first human spaceflight. As this milestone in space travel is celebrated Lydia O’Kane takes a look at this achievement and future possibilities in space exploration.

April 12 1961 and Russian pilot and cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin becomes the first human to travel into outer space and the first man to orbit the earth in his Vostok spacecraft.

Following this momentous occasion Gagarin recalled this experience in his post flight report.

“The feeling of weightlessness was somewhat unfamiliar compared with Earth conditions. Here, you feel as if you were hanging in a horizontal position in straps. You feel as if you are suspended.

50 years on the world has become accustomed to spacecraft and shuttles blasting off on voyages of discovery, but what did it mean back then?

Brother Guy Consolmagno is curator of meteorites at the Vatican Observatory, he says what was also important was the political will.

Following Gagarin’s achievement in 1961 the space race between the then USSR and the United States heated up. America took credit for the first moon landing by the Apollo 11 craft in 1969 and the Russians launched the first space station Salyut 1 in 1971.
In addition to these milestones the shape of; quite literally of; space travel changed with the launch of the space shuttle program and competition between both countries turned to co-operaton with the establishment of the International Space Station.
Over the years there has even been the advent of space tourism and Europe, India and China have also joined the space programme.
But where is space travel going now, what have we really learned and what frontiers are still left to discover.
Brother Consolmagno says there is a lot more to be explored.
Yuri Gagarin did not live to see the evolution of space exploration. He died at the age of 34 in 1968 when the Mig 15 training jet he was piloting crashed. But what he achieved earned him a place in history.
Brother Consolmagno believes the 50^th Anniversary of the first man in space deserves to be marked because it is celebration of the human spirit and the possibilities there are to go where no man has been before. Listen to report here 00:04:22:78