Yuri Gagarin, First Man In Space, Celebrated On 'Yuri's Night,' April 12

By: Clara Moskowitz
Published: 04/12/2012 12:51 AM EDT on SPACE.com

For more than five decades, humans have been suiting up and riding rockets to escape the bonds of Earth, but the anniversary of that historic first flight — which blasted off 51 years ago this week— takes center stage on Thursday (April 12).

To mark the groundbreaking flight of Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin in 1961, space geeks worldwide will revel at themed parties, and a filmmaker will tweet the mission's audio transcript live to coincide with the actual time of the flight.

Gagarin became the first human ever to experience space travel when he blasted off aboard the Vostok 1 flight, a 108-minute jaunt that included a full orbit around Earth.

First Orbit

British filmmaker Chris Riley's movie "First Orbit" was released last year on YouTube, and is now out on DVD and Blu-ray. The film uses recently taken footage from the International Space Station to coincide with the exact flight path and timing of Gagarin's flight to give viewers a taste of what Yuri saw. [Photos: Yuri Gagarin, First Man in Space]

For the anniversary, Riley plans to tweet a live running commentary of the film, which will be screening on YouTube at 2:07 a.m. EDT (0607 GMT) — the exact minute of Gagarin's launchall those years ago. He will include snippets of what Gagarin said, as well as descriptions of the places he was passing over at the time. Others from around the world will tweet the mission transcript in many other languages, using the Twitter hashtag #firstorbit.

"I kind of felt like I got to know [Gagarin] a bit making this film, hearing him talking in my ear," Riley told SPACE.com. "I think he would have been thrilled how half a century on, his story and this extraordinary moment in human history have continued to live on in this new media age."

"First Orbit" will also be screened later on that day at many of the "Yuri's Night" parties being thrown around the globe.

The tradition of Yuri's Night began in 2001 to commemorate the anniversary of Gagarin's flight, as well as the anniversary of NASA's first space shuttle launch, which occurred on April 12, 1981. Last year, for the 50-year mark of the Vostok 1 flight, more than 100,000 people attended 567 Yuri's Night parties in 75 countries on all 7 continents, according to the event's organizers.

More than 200 Yuri's Night parties are planned for this year. To find one near you, visit: http://yurisnight.net/.

Recreating the view

The "First Orbit" film came about in 2011 when Riley started wondering what Gagarin's historic experience felt like first-hand.

"I'd always been rather sorry that Gagarin had never filmed anything of his view of the Earth," Riley said. "It seemed like such a significant moment in the history of life on Earth, and not to have footage attached to it was somewhat disappointing."

Around the same time, NASA and its International Space Station partners installed a new 360-degree view window on the orbiting outpost called the Cupola.

"I thought, 'Hey, do you think we could film what Yuri saw by matching the flight path of the space station to Vostok 1?'"

After some research and collaboration with European Space Agency officials, Riley figured out that the space station would offer a view of just what Gagarin saw, from the same position with the same lighting at the same time of day, about every six weeks.

Ultimately, ESA astronaut Paolo Nespoli of Italy, who was living and working on the station from December 2010 to May 2011, was able to capture the footage from inside the Cupola.

Then, Riley matched up the videos with a new musical score, as well as the actual audio track of Gagarin's calls down to Mission Control from Vostok 1.

"It was unbelievably difficult to try to find it, but we actually tracked it down in the [Russian] state archives," Riley said. "It was just the most wonderful thing."

To watch the screening of "First Orbit" on YouTube visit http://www.youtube.com/firstorbit, and follow the director's live Twitter commentary at @alifeofriley.

You can follow SPACE.com assistant managing editor Clara Moskowitz on Twitter @ClaraMoskowitz. Follow SPACE.com for the latest in space science and exploration news on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.

• 6 Surprising Facts About the First Human Spaceflight
• Gagarin
• Giant Leaps: Top Milestones of Human Spaceflight
• How the First Human Spaceflight Worked (Infographic)

Copyright 2012 SPACE.com, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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Comments

[jabailo]

02:04 PM on 04/14/2012

Congrats Yuri.

[LMPE]

08:27 PM on 04/13/2012

Last year I emailed my friends in Russia to congratulate them for the 50th anniversary. One of the professors recalled having been six years old and working in the garden on the outskirts of Moscow when he heard the news.

[ProCynic]

10:29 AM on 04/13/2012

There is a very high chance that Yuri was not the first. Another cosmonaut, a friend of Yuri's was "disappeared" and erased from photographs about the time Yuri went up. According those that track "lost astronauts", there was a previous flight that failed and Vladimir Ilyushin was killed. Yuri would be the first to survive.

Given that all the launches were held in secret and success was only announced after the pilot landed, there is a good chance that Yuri was either second or third into space, but the first to return alive.

[jabailo]

03:05 AM on 04/13/2012

Too bad he was killed for standing up to the soviets.

[bryanzth]

12:09 PM on 04/15/2012

Cite reference. No bagguer sites.

BZ.

[ThinkCreeps]

06:25 PM on 04/12/2012

The 51st anniversary. Like the 50th anniversary, only less interesting.

[PirateJohn]

09:33 PM on 04/12/2012

Well, you know, sequels are never as good as the original.

[kmcc895370]

03:35 PM on 04/12/2012

Many years ago while visiting NYC I came across a Russian college student selling posters from his homeland on the sidewalk. I bought a large 3 panel poster honoring Gegarin's flight. I got it framed and it's been hanging on my livingroom's only big wall ever since. Yuri's helmeted head is in a red star whose comet-tail circles the Earth. Also streaming across the center are the 12 flags of countries who sent people to be trained as Cosmonauts. Soviet Russia & the US' flags are at the top. I apologise that I can't link a picture. I'm not all that good at computer stuff.

[ecomcon]

12:44 PM on 04/12/2012

Astronauts and cosmonauts have always respected each other. The U.S. had a chance to have the first person in space, but decided to send up a chimp one more time, and during that period, the Soviets launched Gagarin. But I've never heard a harsh word said about Gagarin. Shepard, Glenn and the other Mercury Seven knew that Gagarin beat us fair-and-square, and our desire to catch up put Americans on the moon first. These men and women had (and continue to have) the right stuff, regardless of where they were born or live.

[kmcc895370]

03:22 PM on 04/12/2012

Spoken like a true citizen of Planet Earth. Thank you.

[davesf]

06:29 PM on 04/12/2012

Being the first person to sit atop an enormous controlled explosion and go where, er, "no man had gone before" took a ton of courage. And to replicate that still does. I remember when it happened (I was 9), and everyone in my family just thought it was really cool.

[toomers]

11:43 AM on 04/12/2012

Great to hear that this truly marvelous individual and hero being celebrated by humanity.