Today marks the 50th anniversary of the first human in space – Yuri Gagarin (call sign: Кедр) made is 108 minute flight early April 12th, 1961 aboard the Vostok spacecraft.  AS part of the space race, the Americans would follow three weeks later when Alan Shepard would be the first American in space but it was a suborbital flight.  It wasn’t until almost a year later when John Glenn flew Friendship 7 through three orbits of the Earth that America could say that they achieved orbital space flight.

These were pioneering times back then and the advances were astounding.  Gagarin was launched with little to no understanding as to what may happen to a person in space.  50 years later we know a little more but not much.  The technology for orbital and near-Earth missions has improved but we really haven’t gone much further.  We’ve dabbled with the Moon and a bit with Mars but we’ve really not expanded our knowledge and capabilities in this field in the recent decades.  The last shuttle mission is scheduled for later this month (it’s a decent chance that GorT will be there in person to watch the historic moment), so consider asking yourself, what’s next in space for us?  and what should be next?

GorT

GorT is an eight-foot-tall robot from the 51ˢᵗ Century who routinely time-travels to steal expensive technology from the future and return it to the past for retroinvention. The profits from this pay all the Gormogons’ bills, including subsidizing this website. Some of the products he has introduced from the future include oven mitts, the Guinness widget, Oxy-Clean, and Dr. Pepper. Due to his immense cybernetic brain, GorT is able to produce a post in 0.023 seconds and research it in even less time. Only ’Puter spends less time on research. GorT speaks entirely in zeros and ones, but occasionally throws in a ڭ to annoy the Volgi. He is a massive proponent of science, technology, and energy development, and enjoys nothing more than taking the Czar’s more interesting scientific theories, going into the past, publishing them as his own, and then returning to take credit for them. He is the only Gormogon who is capable of doing math. Possessed of incredible strength, he understands the awesome responsibility that follows and only uses it to hurt people.