<p>April 12, 2011 is the 50th anniversary of the first human space flight.  I’m usually not much for composite images, but I wanted to do something to commemorate the singular achievement of Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin, may his memory be for blessing.  There are so many discussions this simple idea spawns: life, the universe and everything. 
</p><p><i>Photo of Yuri Gagarin during training for his flight, taken by an anonymous photographer of the Soviet space program, the ancestor of the Russian Federal Space Agency. (public domain) Credit: TASS </i>
</p><p>Photo of stars and galaxies imaged by NASA, from the Hubble Space Telescope. This is a small portion of Hubble Ultra Deep Field, which includes objects identified as the most distant objects ever observed by humans. (public domain) Credit: NASA <i></i>
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"My God, it's full of stars!" - Dave Bowman
<a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://www.flickr.com/people/29233640@N07">Robert Couse-Baker</a> from Sacramento, California
CC BY 2.0
<a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/29233640@N07/5612257068/">50 years of human spaceflight (365-101)</a>