I t seems like an eternity since the last Google Doodle, granted its only been about ten days but today’s Yuri Gagarin Doodle is a very welcome addition indeed. The Doodle celebrates the ground breaking day when the 27 year old Russian Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin went launched into space and orbited the earth for the first time in history.
The space mission took a mere 108 minutes but awarded the Russians first blood in the space race and provided the catalyst for missions into space and the moon. The second O in the logo has been replaced with a red planet with his rocket blasting off into space, the Vostok-1 was the first manned mission into space and looked very different from today’s space crafts, more like a missile than a space vehicle.
The Russian Space programme has honoured the anniversary by sending two cosmonauts to the international space station; Alexander Samokutyaev and Andrey Borisenko were delivered to the space station in a rocket named after Gagarin.
Today’s Doodle has proven to be hugely popular as many other animated versions before it, the Robert Bunsen Doodle showed a moving science lab complete with colour changing flame. Today’s is less animated although just as exciting, happy anniversary Yuri Gagarin – the space race has resulted in so much tech that wouldn’t have been invented. Freeze dried ice-cream anyone?
Image: Google