Today, April 12th 2021, marks the 60th anniversary of humanity's first venture into what would become known as 'The Final Frontier', as Russian cosmonaut Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin piloted his Vostok 1 craft on its brief voyage beyond the earth's atmosphere and completed an orbit of the earth before returning to terra firma.
Not the first living creature to be launched into space - he was preceded by such notables as Albert the monkey in June 1949, and Laika the dog in November 1957 - his venture set in motion events which would lead to humanity setting foot on the moon in July 1969, and now beginning to talk about going further into the Solar System, to Mars and who knows where after that.
The events of April 1961 have a special significance for me in that they happened two weeks to the day before I was born! I am, and have always seen myself as, a child of the Space Age. But the implications were much wider: within 23 days Alan Shepard had become the first American in space, and 10 years later he would go on to be one of those who would set foot on the moon as a member of the crew of Apollo 14. In June 1963 Valentine Tereshkova became to first woman in space, and it would take a further 20 years for the USA to send their first woman, Sally Ride. The United Kingdom had to wait until 1991 for Helen Sharman to become out first astronaut.
The 1960s were a time of great hope and opportunity as the 'space race' dominated much of the thinking of the major super-powers, and I wonder whether Gagarin knew what his tentative steps into the unknown would bring about. Sadly, he was not to see the next step, as he died in a flying accident in March 1968, but his legacy will live on after him.
Sixty years on, the human race are now beginning to make tentative steps further into the 'Final Frontier': will Science Fiction be proved right in where it leads us? only time will tell.
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