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Comment by scottshea | Hacker News Reader

I am glad to hear that more is coming out about his death. I think, slowly, Yuri Gagarin's place in American history is being solidified. It would be interesting to find out the process that Gagarin was chosen as the first man. The politics and technical requirements must have been intense. And obviously he had to distinguish himself.

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Yuri Gagarin's place in American history is being solidified.

A lot of people have commented about this remark of yours. I'm old enough (barely) to remember Gagarin's first venture into space (I distinctly remember live TV coverage of the launch of John Glenn's first American orbital space launch) and I have never forgotten about Gagarin, nor about Valentina Tereshkova,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valentina_Tereshkova

whose flight into space, the first by a woman by a large number of years, was just in the news on its fiftieth anniversary. A sufficiently old American grew up in the Space Age, and remembers the names of all the space pioneers.

If younger readers of Hacker News would like to move their minds back in time to learn more about (the American phase of) the early age of manned space flight, I recommend the documentary movie In the Shadow of the Moon,

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0925248/

which I watched with my children just yesterday evening. There is, alas, little mention of the Soviet space program in the film, because the focus is on manned missions to the moon, but the interviews with surviving astronauts are fascinating, and the film-maker does a good job of setting the historical context.

I'm interested in your comment about his place in American history being solidified. Could you expand? Is he not taught about in schools when space is being taught?

He is. It's pretty much left at that, though. It's a pity he's not further discussed in at least higher-level World History education as Yuri's story is quite interesting (even up to why he decided to go on that flight that he did), and my understanding is that he was looked up to even by U.S. astronauts.

On one of the Apollo missions (11), a medal commemorating Yuri's first flight was placed on the moon by the NASA astronauts. The medal was commissioned by the British government and contained inscriptions in both English and Russian languages. It was among other items commemorating fallen astronauts/cosmonauts (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yuri_Gagarin#Tributes)

I'm aware of this because my grandfather hand engraved the medal.

As a young American, I can say that I have no recollection of his name. I've never been particularly interested in space exploration, but living in Florida, we visited the Space Center, watched launches, etc. The names I know are all American: Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, etc. The "programs" I know are too: Apollo, Challenger, etc.

We were taught that the Russians made it to space before we did, and I think that's about it before we moved on to American achievements. Perhaps I had a nationalistic teacher.

Funny. Here in Germany, everybody knows Gagarin and Armstrong, but nobody knows the names of the other Apollo 11 crewmembers.

I assume it varies by school/textbook, but while I agree the American space program was covered with much more emphasis, in my class we did learn about Gagarin. The bits of Soviet space program we learned were basically: Sputnik, first dog in space, Gagarin, Mir.

Do you mean German space program?

We also learned about the role played by German-Americans in the program, yes! Von Braun is pretty much a household name.

What about the Mercury Seven: Alan Shepard, Gus Grissom, John Glenn, Scott Carpenter, Wally Schirra, Gordon Cooper, and Deke Slayton?

FWIW here in the UK in the mid to late 70s we learned about Sputnik, Laika and Gagarin as well as Armstrong, Aldrin et al.

Really? We covered the Soviet space program in 3rd grade in NYC public schools in the 80's. Maybe the teachers were playing up space stuff because of the Challenger disaster, but I'm shocked that you never heard of him!

Just one data point: I taught in an aerospace museum in the US from about 2005-2009. In our rocket history programs, we covered the ancient Chinese, Goddard, the V-2 program and Von Braun, and the competition between the Soviet and American space programs -- Sputnik, Laika, Ham, Gagarin, Tereshkova (and the 20 year lead she had on Sally Ride), and Armstrong (with Aldrin and Collins). I'd usually give the audience a chance to contribute the names. Almost everyone got Neil and Buzz, quite a few knew Gagarin, and the rest of the names were pretty hit-and-miss.

The one personal note I liked to add: I got to meet half a dozen astronauts and cosmonauts (picking them up from the airport and bringing them to our museum for a conference). Every single one of them emphasized that, even as the two sides were competing and treating each other as mortal enemies, those who were actually going to space viewed one another as friends or even brothers.

Wtf? Every school girl and boy knows who he is and what he did.

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