50 years ago is happy family man, ice hockey player and basketball coach, Yuri Gagarin became the first man to enter outer space. The world changed in some ways that day. We were no longer just treading the earth. We were reaching for the stars.
It has been half a century since his famous flight, an all-too-short orbit compared to later cosomonauts' and astronauts' time spent in space. But he was the first one, and with that he became a hero on both sides of the iron curtain. He died too soon, too young, but his legacy lives on, not only in his two daughters, but in the bright eyed children, who look up at the night sky and say, "Dad, one day, I'll travel there."
