“First Orbit”: Celebrating 50th Anniversary of Yuri Gagaran’s Space Flight

To celebrate the 50th anniversary of manned space travel, Attic Room Productions has released First Orbit, a 99-minute free film that recreates Yuri Gagarin’s historic launch into space on April 12, 1961 — in real time. We watched the whole film, which was shot entirely in space from on board the International Space Station. And it’s breathtaking. We were especially blown away by the re-entry sequence, starting at about 1:10:00.

A few other links you may enjoy:

Google’s April 12, 2011 home page

The making of First Orbit

Video from 1961, complete with synthesizers

Gagarin’s Life in Pictures, from the Russian Archives

Gagarin’s 1961 interview with the BBC

Boing Boing’s Xeni Jardin is tweeting the Yuri Gagarin gala from the Kremlin

Finally, and for purely personal and sentimental reasons, here’s Ray Bradbury’s heartbreaking 1951 short story “The Rocket Man,” the first thing we ever read that filled us with longing for space travel.

via Christian Science Monitor

Sheerly Avni is a San Francisco-based arts and culture writer. Her work has appeared in Salon, LA Weekly, Mother Jones, and many other publications. You can follow her on twitter at @sheerly.


by | Permalink | Comments (0) |

Support Open Culture

We’re hoping to rely on our loyal readers rather than erratic ads. To support Open Culture’s educational mission, please consider making a donation. We accept PayPal, Venmo (@openculture), Patreon and Crypto! Please find all options here. We thank you!


Leave a Reply

Quantcast
Open Culture was founded by Dan Colman.