It is 60 years since the first cosmonaut reached orbit and 40 years since the Shuttle first left

Gagarin's flight, on 12 April 1961, marked the first of a human into orbit. The mission, aboard the Vostok 3KA spacecraft, lasted less than two hours from lift-off until Gagarin reached the ground, via parachute, but has continued to resonate through the decades since.

Both Gagarin's flight and the first launch of the Space Shuttle merit applause and, while the intervening years have seen the assembly of the International Space Station and dozens of uncrewed missions to the planets, asteroids and beyond, few events served to capture the imagination of the public in quite the same way.