Farewell to the Space Age

written and curated by Clifton Bertram

Fifty years ago today, Yuri Gagarin blasted off from a launching pad in Baikonur, becoming the first man to experience the dawning of the Space Age. As an avatar of the 'modern', perhaps few cultural touchstones are as emblematic as the concept of the Space Age. Its inauguration was the culmination of generations of aspiration - technical and social - in which it was felt that technology held the key to man's future.

Today, as we huddle around the digital campfires of our cable TV sets, we realize that the Great Hope of the twentieth century, that science and machinery could solve all our problems, was a false one. That same glass teat delivers daily the fallout from that insincere false god, and in the case of the news from Fukushim Prefecture, we are talking about literal fallout.

Still, fifty years ago, there was a brief, shining moment when it seemed that there was nothing that man could not achieve, as a golden era was inaugurated, reaching its pinnacle with Neil Armstrong's historic footsteps on the surface of the moon.

Tomorrow, we will return to our worrisome concerns: measuring the clickety click of radioactive fallout; fretting about the increasing threat to our foodstocks posed by GMOs; the omnipresence of economic woes. But for today, let's take another brief shining moment to remember the Space Age: its precursors, its beginning and its apex.

And let's raise a glass of Stoli in the memory of Yuri Gagarin, 1934-1968.

The century opened with the publication of H.G. Wells' The First Men in the Moon. Although sci-fi pioneer Jules Verne had published From the Earth to the Moon in 1865, Wells' creation was the first lunar novel in the still-infant genre of science fiction, which was just building steam at the beginning of the 20th century. It has also been referred to as the first alien dystopia. It's also true that it serves as a sterling early example of science fiction's ability to make acerbic observations about contemporary society, while retaining a sufficiently academic distance to avoid alienating readers. The "Selenites" encountered by Mr Bedford and Dr Cavor have been characterized as "decadent and self-destructive" -an appelation, it has been observed, that can be applied to today's society.

Its publication was followed almost immediately by the release of the silent film by Georges Méliès silent film A Trip to the Moon, loosely based on both the Wells and Verne books.



Wells' novel spawned a total of four film adaptations, including one from 1964, whose trailer is included in this reel:



Very steampunk!

Even Adolf Hitler had high hopes for technology, and particularly rocket technology. It is widely believed that Hitler funded Dr. Wernher Von Braun's V1 and V2 rocket programs because he believed it could be the key 'super-weapon' that could end the war. Fortunately, he was proven wrong, at least in part because of 24-hour bombing raids made possible by the U.S. joining Britain in offensive bombing campaigns. Had U.S. entry into the war been delayed for another year or two - long enough for Germany to perfect its rocketry, however, history may have been very different.



In the closing days of the war, the U.S. and the Soviets scooped up both technology and technicians as part of Operation Paperclip, exporting the most advanced rocketry principles back to their homelands. In this clip, it's explained how a capture V2 was used by the United States to take the first photograph from space, in the earliest days of what was to become known as 'The Space Race'.



The advent of astonishing new technology brought about as a result of wartime crash programs brought a new consciousness to the world at large, and nowhere was this conciousness felt than in the United States, and most especially, Hollywood. A new breed of films dominated the drive-in screen in the dizzying years following the war, with flying saucers, rockets, aliens and monsters rampaging across the country, leaving crushed popcorn boxes and smashed wasen drink containers strewn in their wake.

Arguably one of the best of the genre was the incredible Forbidden Planet. Launched in 1956, just as "man prepares to take his first steps in space" (from the movie's trailer), the movie still holds up today, with music and effects that don't seem as dated as they should.



Only five years later, human achievement would stretch from the silver screen to Baikonur, as Gagarin ascended to the heavens on a pillar of flame, to bring the dreams of legions of schoolboys to life, and to set the stage for the beginning of the Space Age.





After Gagarin's flight, the Space Age racked up triumph after triumph for manned flight, from the historic Apollo Moon Landing:



....to Salyut...



....to Skylab...



...to the inspiring detente-ish Apollo-Soyuz...



...to Mir...



....to the International Space Station....



Today, haunted by the spectre of clouds of nuclear radiation in transit across the Pacific Ocean, we may be sadder and wiser about the promise of technology. Nevertheless, when we see the evolution of manned spaceflight, from a duel between international nuclear antagonists to cooperation by an international federation of science led by the former foes, we can perhaps find some reason for optimism about the legacy of the Space Age.

Thus, it is most fitting that - in a tribute of which he would no doubt be very proud - on April 5, a space ship named after Yuri Gagarin blasted off from Baikonour, carrying three men to the International Space Station.

Saluyt, Yuri!