Russia, U.S. and China Are in a Scary New Space Race
Sixty years after Yuri Gagarin's orbit of the Earth, the militarization of the cosmos is heating up. A Q&A.
Vladimir Putin, space man.
Photographer: Alexey Druzhinin/AFP/Getty Images
It could be argued that Yuri Gagarin’s short flight into space, 60 years ago this week, was more important to the U.S. than to the Soviet Union. The Soviet launch of the first human into the cosmos, following the satellite Sputnik three years earlier, was seen as the impetus for the U.S. space program and everything that later came along with it, from GPS and LED lights to Odor Eaters and, disgustingly in my formative years, Tang.12
The U.S. may have gotten to the moon first, but Russian President Vladimir Putin loves to revel in his nation’s past, even the Soviet years (and, heaven forbid, the Stalin ones, too).
“This is without a doubt a great event that changed the world,” he said on Monday, while visiting the site where Gagarin parachuted to the ground after his 108-minute single orbit of the Earth. “We will always be proud that it was our country that paved the road to outer space. In the 21st century, Russia must properly maintain its status as one of the leading nuclear and space powers, because the space sector is directly linked to defense.”