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back to article 'Yuri Gagarin' blasts off to ISS

Kazakhstan's Baikonur Cosmodrome last night paid tribute to Yuri Gagarin as the Soyuz TMA-21 spacecraft, decorated with the name of the first man in space, blasted off to the International Space Station. Just a week shy of the 50th anniversary of Gagarin's historic flight on 12 April 1961, astronaut Ronald Garan, and …

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  1. Robert E A Harvey
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    My Hero

    I've always wanted to name something after Yuri. I guess a soyuz is as good a tribute as any.

    Had Sergej Korolëv lived I can't believe that Russia would not have got to the Moon, and Mars. I am so glad they are still providing launchers and keeping the dream alive.

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    1. No, I will not fix your computer
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      Re: My Hero

      You're not wrong, after all Russia was the first to impact the moon, first to land on the moon, first to retrieve moon rock, imagine what they could have done with American budgets! It's a shame really that we had a space "race" at all, a joint or global agency would be seriously looking at Mars rather than this pipe dream that won't see Mars this side of 2040.

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  2. Andrew Newstead

    "Gagarin was the first..."

    "He knew he might not make it,

    For it's never hard to die.

    But he lifted off that pad

    and rode a Fire in the Sky!"

    From "A Fire in the Sky" performed by Kris Klover, look it up.

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  3. Sir Runcible Spoon

    Sir

    I was under the impression that someone else actually went into space first, but because he wasn't exactly poster-boy material they sent up Gegarin and claimed he was the first...or did I dream it? :)

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    1. No, I will not fix your computer
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      It was all a dream...

      There were some conspiracy theories about Gagarin not being the first (burn-up on re-entry etc.) and Gagarin not actually going up at all but they are all anti Russian rubbish.

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