50 years ago Yuri Gagarin became the world’s first human to go into space. What did he see? He described it fairly well, but there are limited pictures and no video from his time in orbit. Now, through a unique collaboration between a filmmaker and ESA astronaut Paolo Nespoli on board the International Space Station, high definition video of what Gagarin might have seen has been woven together with historic recordings of the flight (subtitled in English) to create a new, free film called “First Orbit” that has now been released. This movie is a real time recreation of Yuri Gagarin’s pioneering first orbit, shot entirely in space from on board the International Space Station. The film combines this new footage with Gagarin’s original mission audio and a new musical score by composer Philip Sheppard. For more information about the movie see the First Orbit website.
Also, the @FirstOrbit twitter feed will tweet the original communications in “real” time (50 years later) on April 12, recreating the events as Gagarin flew on Vostok 1 flew from 6:07-7:55 UTC.
i noticed that they had a pic of him for the google homepage today. nice touch.
Great film!
Gagarin jumps out of his capsule 7km up and descends by parachute. That must have been fun. One might think that if his orbit was a boring as this movie, jumping would indeed have been most desirable. I’m sure it wasn’t for Gagarin, but watching this film is.
I assume that putting a handy-cam up to the window on full auto settings was the best that Paolo Nespoli could manage on the ISS, and that this was extra to regular duties, but the results are pretty poor. I always thought something worth doing was worth doing well.
On the plus side there are several shots that are sure to get UFO buffs excited. 🙂