Star Points for April 2011 by Curtis Roelle 50-Year Anniversary of Man in Space This month marks two major anniversaries in the history of manned space exploration. Both took place on April 12th, though 20 years apart. The first human was launched into space 50 years ago, and the first U.S. space shuttle was launched 30 years ago. Even before the 1957 launch of Sputnik 1, the first artificial satellite, the Soviet Union was already making plans to send a man into space. At least three competing programs were being debated as early as 1956, according to Pillip Clark in his book "The Soviet Manned Space Program." One plan envisioned sending unmanned mechanical vehicles to conduct research. It was rejected because it would gobble resources and contribute little toward the goal of placing humans in space. A second plan called for launching a man on a ballistic sub-orbital space flight. This would allow limited research and experience to be accomplished before eventually committing a person to Earth orbit. This is the plan that the American space program would later adopt with the first two flights of project Mercury. In 1959 a more aggressive rival plan won the competition. Project Vostok would launch a man into orbit and return him to Earth. Unlike all early American manned spacecraft that landed on water, Soviet capsules returned on land. Despite its small size, soft landing a manned Vostok would have required a huge parachute and probably an additional retro rocket as well, for landing. The problem was solved with installing an ejector seat. The idea was for the cosmonaut to eject once the Vostok had completed the dangerous atmospheric re-entry phase of its flight. Both cosmonaut and Vostok descent stage floated to Earth separately, each with its own parachute. In 1960, 20 men were selected to receive cosmonaut training. Eventually 12 members of the team would fly in space on various space missions in subsequent years. On April 12, 1961, Vostok 1, with 27-year-old Yuri Gagarin aboard, blasted into Earth orbit from a launch site in Kazakhstan. The mission ended 108 minutes later, after one Earth orbit, with Gagarin ejecting about four miles up. However, due to the Soviet secrecy, the use of the ejection seat was not revealed for some 17 years. This may have been because the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI) rules required a pilot to land in the vehicle for a new aeronautical world record to officially be acknowledged. Clearly, Gagarin's flight could have been disputed due to this technicality, and that would have deprived the Soviets of yet another "first in space" propaganda victory. It reminds me of this old Russian proverb I once read: "If you don't deceive, you can't sell." Twenty years later, on April 12, 1981, Space Shuttle Columbia was sitting on its launch pad at Cape Canaveral in Florida. Aboard were astronauts commander John Young and pilot Bob Crippen. It would be Crippen's first space flght, but Young's fifth. Young had flown on two Gemini flights and had been to the Moon twice on Apollo. His most recent space flight, a three-day stay in the Moon's Descartes Highlands, had lifted off nine years earlier from the very same launch pad. Columbia returned to space 27 more times. In February 2003 Columbia disintegrated during re- entry, killing its seven-member crew. Challenger, the second space shuttle, exploded during launch on its 10th mission, in 1986. Discovery, the third space shuttle, was retired this year after 39 missions in space. Shuttles Atlantis and Endeavour each have one mission remaining before they too are retired. Yuri Gagaran died in the crash of his training jet in March 1968, two weeks after his 34th birthday.