Google honoring Yuri Gagarin the only way it knows how.

On this day 50 years ago (April 12, 1951), hero of the Soviet Union and cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first man to be shot into orbit.  Gagarin’s feat made him a legend and kicked off a space race the likes of which the world has never seen, as the United States and the Soviet Union raced one another in an attempt to put a man on the moon as part of an attempt to embark upon the first manned space flight.  Russia may have started this thing, but the US finished it.  Still, Google loves honoring pioneers, so Google has released a Google Doodle honoring the 50th anniversary of Yuri Gagarin’s historic space flight, complete with adorable launching rocket.

It’s amazing how far we’ve come in 50 years, isn’t it?  We’ve gone from struggling to send one man into orbit to embarking on space tourism efforts and developing unmanned space flight designed simply to drop stuff off to an orbiting space station.  What once was a national event is now routine, even boring.  It’s like we’ve all forgotten that we’re putting men into SPACE, and taking that incredible feat for granted.

Conquering space is a big deal, guys!  Let’s try to remember how incredible that feat is.

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