Perhaps it was the occasion of the 50th anniversary of Yuri Gagarin being the first man out in space, or maybe he just felt tired about running around in the heat. Whatever the reason, Shane Watson rewrote cricket record books yesterday by hitting 15 sixes and 15 boundaries in his ODI innings.
To me, it is the combination of 15 sixes and fours each which is awesome. To think about it, in only 30 scoring deliveries or 5 overs, he managed 150 runs. Though he faced a total of 98 balls for his 185, by any standards, it is an amazing feat. We have reasons to hope for an entertaining Indian Premier League, if he continues in the same fashion.
:-D
Which allows me to go on to the special occasion, for today is the 50th Anniversary of Yuri Gagarin’s space flight - the first man (human) to do so. Less than a month later, on 5th of May, the Americans sent Alan Shepard into space, the second human to do so. While we’ve probably heard of the famous ‘Shepard’s Prayer’ - “Dear Lord, please don’t let me f**k up!”, most of us may never have heard of Sergei Korolev or Vladimir Komarov. I certainly hadn’t till today.
Sergei Korolev was the chief designer of the Soviet Rocket/Space program, which made it possible for his ‘Little Eagle’ Gagarin to achieve the feat. This interesting article in Guardian [http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2011/mar/13/yuri-gagarin-first-space-korolev] even goes as far to suggest that had Korolev not died due to complications during surgery in Jan 1966, the Soviets might have been the first to land man on the moon, once again edging the Americans to 2nd place.
8-O
Equally interesting was this blog post about Vladimir Komarov [http://gizmodo.com/#!5783825/the-sad-tragedy-of-a-russian-cosmonaut-who-was-sent-into-space-knowing-he-would-die], who died attempting to orbit the Earth in a shoddily constructed spacecraft - the Soyuz-1, in April 1967.
It does tie in nicely with what had been written in the Guardian article, as Korolev had passed away more than an year back.
But it appears there are other inconsistencies in that post, which to be fair, was based on the book ‘Starman’, by Jamie Doran and Piers Bizony, and the topic continues to grow.
So, all of the three Soviet spacemen achieved greatness in their profession and what were their reward? Untimely death.
OTOH, we, in India are blessed with space scientists who lead a charmed life. One piddly moonshot with Chandrayaan-1 which didn’t even last half of its intended life time, and the buggers happily divided the spoils by selling off S-band spectrum and allegedly scamming the nation of Rs. 200,000 crores (~USD 45bn).
8-O
Little eagles? Fat buzzards, more like.
And what does the Government do? Announce that the deal is cancelled and sweep everything under the carpet. What about he people who tried the swindle in the 1st place? Looks like it will go the way of the IPL ‘sweat equity’ hustle - a slap on the wrist and brazen bluff that ‘no wrong was done’!
Fat buzzards? Laughing hyenas, more like.
To me, it is the combination of 15 sixes and fours each which is awesome. To think about it, in only 30 scoring deliveries or 5 overs, he managed 150 runs. Though he faced a total of 98 balls for his 185, by any standards, it is an amazing feat. We have reasons to hope for an entertaining Indian Premier League, if he continues in the same fashion.
:-D
Which allows me to go on to the special occasion, for today is the 50th Anniversary of Yuri Gagarin’s space flight - the first man (human) to do so. Less than a month later, on 5th of May, the Americans sent Alan Shepard into space, the second human to do so. While we’ve probably heard of the famous ‘Shepard’s Prayer’ - “Dear Lord, please don’t let me f**k up!”, most of us may never have heard of Sergei Korolev or Vladimir Komarov. I certainly hadn’t till today.
Sergei Korolev was the chief designer of the Soviet Rocket/Space program, which made it possible for his ‘Little Eagle’ Gagarin to achieve the feat. This interesting article in Guardian [http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2011/mar/13/yuri-gagarin-first-space-korolev] even goes as far to suggest that had Korolev not died due to complications during surgery in Jan 1966, the Soviets might have been the first to land man on the moon, once again edging the Americans to 2nd place.
8-O
Equally interesting was this blog post about Vladimir Komarov [http://gizmodo.com/#!5783825/the-sad-tragedy-of-a-russian-cosmonaut-who-was-sent-into-space-knowing-he-would-die], who died attempting to orbit the Earth in a shoddily constructed spacecraft - the Soyuz-1, in April 1967.
It does tie in nicely with what had been written in the Guardian article, as Korolev had passed away more than an year back.
But it appears there are other inconsistencies in that post, which to be fair, was based on the book ‘Starman’, by Jamie Doran and Piers Bizony, and the topic continues to grow.
So, all of the three Soviet spacemen achieved greatness in their profession and what were their reward? Untimely death.
OTOH, we, in India are blessed with space scientists who lead a charmed life. One piddly moonshot with Chandrayaan-1 which didn’t even last half of its intended life time, and the buggers happily divided the spoils by selling off S-band spectrum and allegedly scamming the nation of Rs. 200,000 crores (~USD 45bn).
8-O
Little eagles? Fat buzzards, more like.
And what does the Government do? Announce that the deal is cancelled and sweep everything under the carpet. What about he people who tried the swindle in the 1st place? Looks like it will go the way of the IPL ‘sweat equity’ hustle - a slap on the wrist and brazen bluff that ‘no wrong was done’!
Fat buzzards? Laughing hyenas, more like.
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