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 | 04/13/2011 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Morning Digest: Obama to lay out deficit plan with focus on tax, spending
Today's headlines http://www.forsythnews.com/
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| Convict's release may have been mistake |
| Leaders selected for aquatic center |
| Dock diving event begins Friday |
| Hike 4 Hyde is Saturday |
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MY 511 Transit Update
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MY 511 Transit Status for omsssignal April 13, 2011 - 12:00 AM Home to Work (12th St. Oakland City Center) 24th St. Mission: << No data available >> Daly City: << No data available >> Dublin/Pleasanton: << No data available >> Fremont: 2, 22, 52 min Millbrae: << No data available >> Montgomery: << No data available >> SF Airport: << No data available >> SF Airport then Millbrae: 3, 20 min |
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ABC NewsMail - afternoon edition
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| Afternoon Edition. Wed 13 Apr 2011 | |
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| Top Stories | More Top Stories > |
 Charges against Matthew Newton dropped
Millions to be 'better off' under carbon tax
Investigation into 'disturbing' case of 13yo mum
Taliban will target female diggers
Navy frigate scuttled after dolphin delay | |
| The Drum | More from The Drum > |
 Don't bet on the joys of pokies No Twitter at the Logies? Desperate, typical, boring Teen girl kicked to cause miscarriage. Let's not get emotional Bob Ellis, you can't possibly be serious Training complete, media mission underway | |
| World | More World Stories > |
| Australian man shot at in PNG Gillard set for week-long Asia visit Man arrested in fake US Army unit scam | |
| Science & Technology | More Science & Technology Stories > |
| Science Festival not going ahead Green group urges more effort to save black cockatoos Soviet space capsule sells for $3m | |
| Environment | More Environment Stories > |
| Fears for jobs at Ranger uranium mine Council names new preferred dump site Gillard spruiks massive solar power project | To change your preferences, please enter your email address and click 'Login' here or to unsubscribe click here. This service may include material from Agence France-Presse (AFP), APTN, Reuters, CNN and |
ABC NewsMail - morning edition
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| Morning Edition. Wed 13 Apr 2011 | |
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| Top Stories | More Top Stories > |
 Clubs boss shocked by Wilkie death threat claim
Combet to detail carbon tax compo
Mubarak suffers heart attack
Claims Shooters have parks, schools in their sights
Tasmania hit by small quake | |
| The Drum | More from The Drum > |
 ADFA affair shows women's fight for rights goes on Our orgy of vanity over Libya 'Just do it': a sports slogan, not an instruction to women Pauline Hanson: too close for comfort Learning from public policy mistakes of the GFC | |
| World | More World Stories > |
| Reprisal killings underway in Ivory Coast Defector leaves UK for Libya talks US broached idea of university job for Gbagbo | |
| Science & Technology | More Science & Technology Stories > |
| Freshwater centre focuses on research contract fluctuation Car emissions ratings flawed, say researchers NBN worry | |
| Environment | More Environment Stories > |
| Claims Shooters have parks, schools in their sights Car emissions ratings flawed, say researchers US expert talks biomass | To change your preferences, please enter your email address and click 'Login' here or to unsubscribe click here. This service may include material from Agence France-Presse (AFP), APTN, Reuters, CNN and |
Why Everyone Loves Yuri Gagarin, the First Human to Reach Space
| By Jesus Diaz Why Everyone Loves Yuri Gagarin, the First Human to Reach Space
Together, they pushed the world in a way that nobody imagined before them. One was a scientist. The other, an optimistic hero loved by his people and everyone who has read about him, including myself. And after reading this, you will love him too. The scientist's was Sergei Pavlovich Korolev, a genius who dreamed of rockets that could take us to the stars. He was almost killed by Stalin's crazy purges at the end of 1938. After years in prison, he became the head of the Soviet Union's space program. He designed the vessel that took our hero where no human have gone before. That hero was a very young man, the son of a poor family, born in rural Russia: Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin. The launchIt was April 12, 1961. Sputnik, humans' first spacecraft, had reached orbit just four years earlier. Four years. It was nothing. The rockets and the spaceships were all highly experimental. The men and women who stepped into them knew that everything could go wrong and, in fact, did go wrong too many times. But April 12 was not going to be one of those times. It was a cold clear morning at Baikonur Cosmodrome's Site 1, in Kazakhstan, one of the socialist republics under Moscow's iron fist. That morning, at 4:10 Universal Time, Yuri Alekseyevich stepped into his Vostok 1 spacecraft after enjoying breakfast with his backup pilot, Gherman Stepanovich Titov.
He was going to be the first man in space—or die trying. And yet, inside his tiny spherical metal capsule, Gagarin was calm. Vostok-1, his ship, and Vostok-K, his rocket, were humming with him. I can imagine his subtle smile. He knew he could be reduced to tiny particles in a few minutes. Yet, he was optimistic, chatting with ground control, his pulse going at only 64 beats per minute. At the other side of his radio was Korolev—chief designer of his spaceship. He was so nervous that he had to take a pill after feeling chest pains, fearing a heart attack. I can imagine him lighting the next cigarette with the one that was still burning on his mouth. At 06:07am, Gagarin heard Korolev's shouting on the radio: "Preliminary stage... intermediate... main... LIFT OFF! We wish you a good flight. Everything is all right." Gagarin exclaimed just one single word, as the world roared around him: Poyekhali! "Off we go!"And off he went. A few minutes later, Gagarin was in orbit. In awe, he muttered one of the most beautiful phrases in the history of civilization: "The Earth is blue. How wonderful. It is amazing." "The Earth is blue. How wonderful. It is amazing." And amazing it was. It maybe was an obvious thing to say, but it was spoken from an honest heart, touched and humbled by the breathtaking view of his true home. Born son of a peasant in the village of Klushino near Gzhatsk, Russia, Gagarin was the first man to reach space and the first to orbit Earth. And to him, the experience resonated at the most basic level, in every fiber of his being.
In just a few minutes, the perspective of a species changed. There's a world before and after Gagarin, perhaps even more so than Armstrong, Aldrin and Collins. While reaching the Moon was perhaps the most amazing feat ever accomplished by humans, Gagarin's flight definitely started the return of humans to their true home. A perfect flightDuring his orbit, Yuri kept radioing optimistic messages to Earth, telling everyone that everything was fine even while he could barely hear ground control, amazed by the experience that no human have had before:
Minutes later:
At 06:31am, he transmitted the following words:
At 07:55am, Vostok-1 had completed an entire Earth orbit. It was another moment of truth. The spacecraft aligned automatically to re-enter the Earth's atmosphere, getting ready to fire its retrorocket. The ship only had one retrorocket system because the Vostok-K rocket didn't have enough payload capacity to carry a backup module. Had it failed, Gagarin would have stayed in orbit for days. In fact, he had ten days of provisions in case he had to wait for the spacecraft to naturally fall off its orbit.
Yes. He definitely had The Right Stuff. The sad death of a heroGagarin's adventure was a total success. The United States was stunned at the news and NASA rushed to get an astronaut into space. It wasn't until May 5, 1961, that Alan Shepard was launched into space to became the first US astronaut, but only following a ballistic missile trajectory. It wasn't until the next year that the US put an astronaut in orbit, when John Glenn circled the Earth for 4 hours, 55 minutes, and 23 seconds aboard the Friendship 7 on February 20, 1962. After becoming a hero of the Soviet Union, Gagarin was grounded forever, too precious to be lost by the propaganda machinery of the draconian communist regime. He returned to Star City—where the Soviet Union developed their space program—to work on reusable spacecraft designs, but he never got into one himself again. In fact, after Vladimir Komarov died in the the first Soyuz flight, Gagarin—who was his backup pilot—was banned from even training for spaceflight. It was ironic because only a few years later Gagarin died in a routine fighter pilot training flight, on March 27, 1968, aged 34. It was only two years after Korolev died from cancer—his role as the father of the space program still completely ignored by everyone. Gagarin moved then from the status of hero to legend. For the people of Russia—sad and pessimistic—and to the entire world he represented an optimistic view of the future. Yuri, the son of simple farmer, flew into space. He did it and he believed in a bright, better future, in which humans would travel to the stars. And, during his short life, he transmitted that optimism to everyone who met him. They just don't make them like these anymore. Godspeed Yuri Alekseyevich. You'll be remembered forever. Based on In Honor of Yuri Gagarin, the First Human in Space, published on May 7, 2009.
| April 12th, 2011 Top Stories |
It happened when Earth was still in black and white: 50 years ago we stepped outside our home planet for the first time. This is the tale of the beginning of an adventure that hasn't ended yet, the biggest, most dangerous and rewarding quest ever embarked on by the human race—the fascinating story of two men who took us to a new level.
When he said that phrase he was orbiting from an altitude of 300 kilometers over Gaia's skin, expressing the exact same feeling that every single astronaut has had ever since. A sentiment of total awe at the beauty of 
Fortunately, all the systems worked perfectly fine. A few minutes later, a big ball of fire boomed over the skies of Russia. Gagarin activated the parachute and landed about ten minutes later, crashing on a field near Engels City, in Saratov Oblast, Russia. By the Volga River, a farmer and his daughter saw him walking towards them in his orange cosmonaut suit:
