Vostok 1

Today is the 50th anniversary of our first step off this planet of ours. On April 12, 1961, Yuri Gargarin climbed in the Vostok 3K-A capsule atop a modified R7 rocket and launched into space. After a single orbit of the earth, lasting just under two hours, Gargarin returned safely to earth. Incidentally the R7 rocket was originally designed as an ICBM, but found much more use in the Russian space program. Variants of this rocket design are still used today to launch cosmonauts into space. Reto Geiger built a LEGO version of Vostok 1.