Off We Go! | Поехали!
Sixty years ago, on Apr 12, Vostok 1 carried the first man to space, cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, who set off on the journey from Baikonur Cosmodrome, bidding farewell to chief engineer Sergei Korolev with the famous words that later was synonymous with the beginning of the space age in the Eastern Bloc — “Off we go (Poyekhali in Russian)!” And sixty years hence men and women have gone different distances beyond the pull of the Earth’s gravitational field to orbit in their spacecraft, to the moon and now in the micro-g lab, the International Space Station.
The Space Race, that began with the launch of Sputnik 1, a little less than four years prior to Gagarin’s flight, contributed immensely to many technological advancements that have greatly enhanced life in the 20th and the 21st century as we know it. With both the USSR and the US heavily involved in the competition in the backdrop of the Cold War, each country advanced head to head to the moon, with the latter nation winning that leg of the race. Exactly twenty years post Gagarin’s lift-off was the launch of Columbia, the first fully functional space shuttle, a highlight of American space odyssey. And forty years hence, space is not just the territory for geographic and economic giants, but also for little, and quickly developing nations like the United Arab Emirates, who just announced their first female astronaut few days ago.
The thirst to satisfy human curiosity about outer space and nearby bodies, combined with the excitement of engineering and survival challenges has propelled mankind to further develop space travel, making it safer, more comfortable, and more viable with every new invention in the field. From getting to low earth orbit to driving a rover (and soon flying a helicopter!) on Mars, space exploration has come a long, long way. And the race to greater distances and placing a human on Mars is no longer restricted to the space-enthusiastic nations who want to earn the crowning glory of sending humans far and beyond in the strangest of environments — private enterprises have been finding a way. With the science and technology more accessible to everybody than ever before, and with more qualified and skilled workers to calculate and engineeer their path to Mars, space travel is not as restricted as it seems to be — with space tourism (for pleasure and for charity) being no longer a marvellous figment of fiction.
However, the coundown and blast-off and the very thrill of the astronauts who Poyekhali their way to higher altitudes is still nerve-wracking and the rigorous conditions the human body is subjected to calls for a firm and resilient travel capable of going through the hi-speed, hi-altitude travel, the crushing pressure of lift-off, the physical and mental strain of living in micro-g, and the ability to deal with the tasks — those that are mission-related and whatever space life surprises you with. Muscle atrophy, the dangers of harmful radiation, fluid redistribution and even motion sickness are just among the many problems humans still have to face among other physiological and psychological effects regardless of the sophistication of the facilities they travel, work and live in. Nevertheless, the innate sense of adventure propelling us to reach the corners of the universe and the curiosity to seek out what only space telescopes have captured all motivate us to continue in the legacy of the Soviet Air Force Pilot from the village of Klushino in Soviet Russia, who later became a cosmonaut — Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin.
