[vespine]

Well this is old news to most, but it happened just a few years before I was born I've always known about sputnik, Laika and Yuri G and all that, learning about it as a child I guess I never really thought about it on a "human" level before I came across this today:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vostok_1

Especially the mission time line...
Just, wow! Can you even imagine it?? Thought I'd link it here in case someone finds it as interesting as I did.