April 2011 marked the 50th anniversary of the first flight into space by a human being, the Russian/Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin. Like the launch of Sputnik before it, it was an event that shook the world, especially the USA; arguably it set the pattern of human space activity to this day, provoking intense competition that led to the Moon race and to the eclipse of much Soviet achievement by the USA's seemingly brighter triumphs, but also creating an 'Apollo paradigm' that has brought the latter country to a dead end in space.
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