{"id":8319,"date":"2021-06-20T22:06:39","date_gmt":"2021-06-20T20:06:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aida-aerofilatelia.org\/?p=8319"},"modified":"2021-06-20T22:18:35","modified_gmt":"2021-06-20T20:18:35","slug":"april-12-a-space-date-60-years-of-the-first-man-in-space-and-40-years-of-the-space-shuttle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aida-aerofilatelia.org\/en\/2021\/06\/20\/april-12-a-space-date-60-years-of-the-first-man-in-space-and-40-years-of-the-space-shuttle\/","title":{"rendered":"April 12, a space date: 60 years of the first man in space and 40 years of the Space Shuttle"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Silvia Vaccari<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\n

\u201cFrom up here the Earth is beautiful, without frontiers or borders\u201d,<\/em> Juri Alexieievich Gagarin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was April 12, 1961 when Juri Alexieievich Gagarin was the first human being to orbit the Earth aboard the Vostok 1 spacecraft, beating America once again in the middle of the Cold War, after the successful launch of Sputnik 1 on October, 4 1957.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gagarin entered the Vostok 1 spacecraft at 7:10 am, but a technical problem with the closing hatch, which was later solved, delayed the launch by almost an hour.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Figure 1 – Juri Gagarin on board the Vostok 1.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Then the extraordinary feat began: the probe traveled in an almost complete orbit around the Earth in 106 minutes, a speed of 27,000 km \/ h and a distance from the Earth’s surface of 327 km.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

No man had ever done this; America only came into orbit after 23 days with Alan Shepard on May 5th 1961<\/a> with the spacecraft Freedom 7<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Juri Gagarin was the first human being to see the spherical shape of the Earth and to experience the absence of gravity by witnessing an unprecedented and wonderful spectacle from the small porthole of the Vostok 1.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Figure 2 – The Vostok 1 on display after the return.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Upon his return, Gagarin became a national icon and an international celebrity; the Soviet propaganda machine was put to work and naturally also the philatelic one: just 24 hours after the landing of Yuri Gagarin, the first postage stamp of the USSR was issued on 13 April 1961, followed on 17 by two other copies celebrating the extraordinary feat and its protagonist and then from the rest of the world with hundreds of commemorative stamps of the first man in space.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Figure 3 – Miscellaneous of stamps and envelopes issued to celebrate the extraordinary feat.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n