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Home > Science Talk > First in Space: New Yuri Gagarin Biography Shares Hidden Side of Cosmonaut
Podcast: Science Talk
Episode:

First in Space: New Yuri Gagarin Biography Shares Hidden Side of Cosmonaut
Category: Religion & Spirituality
Duration: 00:23:21
Publish Date: 2021-04-13 00:00:00
Description: It’s been 60 years, to the day, since Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin was the first human to travel to space in a tiny capsule attached to an R-7 ballistic missile, a powerful rocket originally designed to carry a 3-5 megaton nuclear warhead. In this new episode marking the 60th anniversary of this historic space flight—the first of its kind—Scientific American talks to Stephen Walker, award-winning filmmaker, director and book author, about the daring launch that changed the course of human history, and charted a map to the skies and beyond. Walker discusses his new book, Beyond: The Astonishing Story of the First Human to Leave Our Planet and Journey into Space , out today, and how Gagarin’s journey—an enormous mission fraught by danger and planned in complete secrecy by the Soviet Union—happened on the heels of a Cold War between the US and the USSR, and sparked a relentless space race between a rising superpower and an ailing one, respectively. Walker, whose films won Emmys and BAFTAs, revisits the complex politics and pioneering science of this era, from a fresh perspective. He talks about his hunt for eye witnesses, decades after the event, how he uncovered never-before-seen footage of the space mission, and most importantly, how he still managed to put the human story at the heart of a tale at the intersection of political rivalry, cutting-edge technology, and humankind’s ambition to conquer space, and explore new frontiers.
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