Like on Internet, in Spacecraft, Nobody knows you're a Dog

I knew (and still do) so much about Apollo 11, other American space missions and NASA. And I know so little about Soviet Yuri Gagarin. (And they say India sided with Soviet Union in the Cold War. Also, I was fired by the passion of communism until I turned 23 or so!)

MARY ROACH writes about "5 feet 2 inches tall and nice as heck" Mr. Gagarin:

"...Strangely, the first man to ascend into the cosmos was a skilled pilot forbidden to use his skills. The controls of Vostok I were locked; the capsule was maneuvered entirely from the ground. As Gagarin himself put it, “I’m not sure if I was the first man in space or the last dog.”..."

(The New York Times, April 9, 2011)

Following, of course, is an iconic cartoon of our age. Read more about it here.

Artist: Peter Steiner, The New Yorker, July 5 1993