April 12 - Cosmonautics Day 2012
April 12, 2012 will mark the fifty-first anniversary of the first manned space flight - Cosmonautics Day 2012. Yuri Gagarin was the first person who managed to commit what was previously thought impossible.
April 12, 1961 from the cosmodrome "Baikonur" launched the spaceship "Vostok" with the Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin on board. For 108 minutes, "East" committed the world's first orbital flight in near-Earth space.
Exactly one year later, on April 12, 1962, by decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, Cosmonautics Day. Twenty years after Yuri Gagarin's flight into space, on April 12, 1981, launch of shuttle Columbia - the first manned flight on the American program "Space Shuttle".
On April 12, 2001, eleven years ago, the first celebration took place "Yuri's Night" ("Yuri's Night"), an international party in honor of Yuri Gagarin andspace research in general. The organizer of the "St George Night" was the Space Generation Advisory Council. This non-governmental organization brings together participants from more than 60 countries around the world.
Earlier on April 12, it was as Cosmonautics DayThey were noted only in the USSR, and after the collapse of the Soviet Union - in some CIS countries. But the Cosmonautics Day 2011 came to the international level - though under a different name. On April 8, 2011, the UN General Assembly decided to declare April 12 International day of manned space flight.
Day of flightThe first man in space came from Russia. It was supported by more than 60 countries, which became co-authors of the resolution. This resolution was adopted unanimously. In the hall of the General Assembly was demonstrated the appeal of the ISS (International Space Station) crew to the UN. The multinational crew of the orbital station welcomed the new holiday.
In honor of the anniversary of the first manned space flight UN postal service issued a series of anniversary stamps. The brands had a face value of 35 euro cents (65 thousandblocks), 44 cents of the USA (52 thousand blocks) and 0.50 Swiss francs (55 thousand blocks). On the day of the fiftieth anniversary of the historic flight, the anniversary stamps were extinguished.
In Ukraine on April 12, except for the Day of Astronautics Day of workers of rocket and space industry of Ukraine, national professional holiday. It was established in 1997 by the President of Ukraine Leonid Kuchma and has since been celebrated annually.
In the 51 years since the first space flight, more than 500 people visited the cosmos, representatives of 38 countries of the world. But this is only the beginning - years will pass, and our children and grandchildren will "discover new worlds, look for new forms of life and civilization, boldly go to places where the human foot has not set foot."
