Tuesday marks exactly sixty years since Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin flew Vostok 1 on a lap of the globe, in what was the first manned space flight.
The successful orbit took just under two hours and was a Soviet body blow to the United States, falling in the middle of a space race that had gripped the two Super Powers.
Astronomer Alan Gilmore, a former superintendent at Mt John observatory in Tekapo, still remembers that event on 12 April, 1961.