International Space Flight Day
12 April
INTERNATIONAL DAY OF HUMAN SPACE FLIGHT
Stamp issued by Ukraine in 2011
On 7th April 2011 the General Assembly of the United Nations (in its resolution A/RES/65/271) declared 12 April as the International Day of Human Space Flight “to celebrate each year at the international level the beginning of the space era for mankind, reaffirming the important contribution of space science and technology in achieving sustainable development goals and increasing the well-being of States and peoples, as well as ensuring the realization of their aspiration to maintain outer space for peaceful purposes.” This came about in recognition of ....
Yuri Gagarin, who became the first human in space
Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin (9 March 1934 - 27 March 1968) was a Russian pilot and cosmonaut. He was the first human to journey into outer space when his Vostok spacecraft completed an orbit of the earth on 12th April 1961. The flight lasted 108 minutes. Gagarin became an international celebrity and was awarded many medals and titles, including Hero of the Soviet Union, that nation's highest honour. Vostok 1 was his only spaceflight. On 27th March 1968 he and a flight instructor Vladimir Sreryogin died in a MiG-15UTI carsh near the town of Kirzhach. They were cremated and the ashes buried in the walls of the Kremlin on Red Square in Moscow.
NASA's Project Mercury astronaut, Colonel Alan Shephard, became the first American in to go into space - though sub-orbital - less than a month after Gagarin's flight.
Contact
see website Contact Us