I was a sophomore in high school.. and I, along with everyone else in the world, was absolutely stunned to hear Yuri Gagarin had become the first man to orbit the earth. You can ride along with Mr. Gagarin and see exactly what he saw in this brilliant film made to commemorate the 50th anniversary of this historic flight:
From FNC's web site, which is where I found this film:
As he edited together the film, Riley made an unusual discovery: Gagarin's short bursts of communication from the cockpit were very much akin to modern Twitter chatter. In addition to being the first man in space, Riley called him the first man on Twitter.First man to orbit the earth and the first Tweets (sorta)... ain't that sumthin'? Yeah, the film IS long, but it's also worthwhile.
“It’s clear Yuri spoke in 'tweets’ -- as communications to the mission controllers were always brief and to the point," he said. " Today a text-based tweet is composed of up to no more than 140 characters, so in essence Yuri was the first perfect tweeter."
I can't see the video from work but I did read today that one of his "Tweets" was: Great they have sausage.
ReplyDeletePriorities!
What grapefruit-sized balls it took to be the first person in space! No guarantees, no precedents, your life in the balance at every moment of the journey. Amazing.
ReplyDeleteWhat Sullybsaid. I'm coming back to watch the video.
ReplyDeleteLooks like an interesting film, I will be back to watch more. It does make me think of hearing Alan Shepard joke about sitting on top of however many gallons of fuel in a rocket built by the lowest bidder.
ReplyDeleteKris: Priorities, indeed! ;-)
ReplyDeleteJim: Agreed. In spades.
Moogie and Lou: I found the film interesting for the dialog between Gagarin and the Rooskie Mission Control. Among other things...
Turns out the rocket was safer than a Mig-15, as that is what eventually killed him. Too bad he never graduated up to Mig-21's. He probably would have died in bed.
ReplyDeleteOr in a same-but-different smokin' hole in the ground. I hear/read MiG-21s couldn't turn fer shit.
ReplyDelete