50 Years Ago Today, First Human Orbited Earth. With Footage!

Above is a “real time recreation of Yuri Gagarin’s pioneering first orbit, shot entirely in space from on board the International Space Station. The film combines this new footage with Gagarin’s original mission audio and a new musical score by composer Philip Sheppard.”

Fifty years ago today,  Yuri Gagarin was orbiting the motherfucking Earth. Fifty years ago today we said fuck you to gravity, plausibility, and rocketed off this fucking Earth. We, as in humanity, not some retarded provincial ideas constructed with illusory borders and ideologies.

Meanwhile, we’re a pack of assholes still fighting. I shouldn’t romanticize the notion too much, spaceflight was born out of the rush of the Cold War. But fuck, at least we were doing something. This is the year the US space program is going to die, with no flights planned and nothing on the perimeter. Launching a thousand-zillion Tomahawk missiles but no longer daring to dream.

I miss the days when at least we were dumb enough to have ideals on top of our absurd defense budget and endless wars. I want to stare the stars and find them not impossible, to dream of a day when that bullshit was something we were working towards, no forgetting.