(Cosmos)
50 years ago today (April 12), Yuri Gagarin became the first human to go into space. As I've stated many times, Russias launch pad is in south central Kazakhtan in a zone they lease from KZ. So Russia's space program has always been linked to KZ.
Many countries are having ceremonies this week- US, Romania, and KZ and most likely others. The US Space Shuttle program just ended and until something else comes up, all US astronauts will hitch a ride with Russia (from KZ). And interesting, Putin just said the other day that Russia has an interest in making a permanent moon base to mine Helium-3. I've read a lot recently about space tourism becoming more realistic as well.
50 years ago today it was started.
