Viktor Vassilyevich Gorbatko, a Russian cosmonaut, and his Vietnamese colleague Pham Tuan (Source: VNA) Hanoi (VNA) – A ceremony was held in Hanoi on April 11 to mark Russia’s Cosmonautics Day and the 55 th anniversary of the launch of the first human into orbit (April 12).
Addressing the event, Huynh Quyet Thang, Vice Rector of the Hanoi University of Science and Technology, said as a power in the research into and use of universal space to serve national socio-economic development and peaceful purposes, Russia has accompanied other countries in this field through the launch of manned space flights.
On April 12, 1961, Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first human in space, he said, recalling the day when Viktor Vassilyevich Gorbatko, a Russian cosmonaut, and his Vietnamese colleague Pham Tuan flew to space together on July 13, 1980.
Russian cosmonauts and technicians now know how to guarantee life in space-crafts as well as in space, Thang noted.
Mentioning the application of nuclear technology in space exploration, Associate Prof. Ha Manh Thu, Director of the Information Centre on Nuclear Energy, said a nuclear engine is the only engine that can help humanity explore the Galaxy in a short enough timescale.
Therefore, he said, nuclear applications play a significant role in space exploration.
In mid-March this year, Russia announced that it will test a nuclear engine in 2018 that could help cosmonauts reach Mars in just six weeks. This compares to the 18 months spacecraft currently need to get to Mars, and could make Russia the first nation to land humans on the red planet, Thu said.-VNA
