Yuri

Fifty years ago our perception of the world changed forever when Yuri Gagarin completed the first orbit of the Earth in a spacecraft. Against a back drop of the Cold War, the former pilot turned cosmonaut gave us a new impression of the world we dwell on.

His tiny Vostok capsule spent just 108 minutes in flight, and yet that briefest of adventures changed the view of the world and became a defining moment of the last century. Man slipped the shackles of Earth's gravity and began to explore a new frontier. It was perhaps a happy coincidence for Gagarin that he lived in a time where for once the vision and the political will came together in one glorious spring morning.

The mission has always been shrouded in secrecy. Initially this was to suppress the true nature of the landing - not a controlled decent in the spacecraft but an ejection from 7 km up - but also due to the nature of world politics at that time. But even now new facts emerge from the archives as to all the details of that momentous time.

The footage below shows some of the highlights of the mission. Although you could argue that some of the footage is propaganda at its finest for me the footage captures the freedom of exploration. The iconic image of the rocket's shadow on the ground as it leaves the launch pad for me, anyway, captures the moment.

To celebrate this event a video has been put together at the First Orbit website that uses footage taken from the ISS to recreate the views that Gagarin would have experienced as his Vostok capsule orbited the Earth.

Sadly today the political will, and arguably money, is lacking to fully build on the dreams that were fostered in the 1960's. I think were Yuri still alive today he would marvel at the technology at our disposal, and yet be frustrated that we have not really built much upon the foundations laid decades ago.