Cosmonaut Day observed in Nepal

On April 12 the whole World celebrates an Aviation and Cosmonautics Day – a date to commemorate the first ever flight of human in space. On April 12, 1961 a citizen of the Soviet Union, first lieutenant Yuri Gagarin orbited the Erath on board “Vostok” spacecraft for the first time in mankind history, thus opening the era of manned space missions.

Nowadays it is a special date – a day of science triumph, a day of all the people involved in aerospace industry, a day of those who remember the history of conquering the near-Earth space, those proud for achievements of our cosmonautics, those interested in prospects of space programs development.

In 2011, at the 65th session of the United Nations General Assembly, 12 April was declared as the International Day of Human Space Flight in dedication of the first crewed space flight made by Yuri Gagarin.  

In Nepal, Nepal Science Olympiad and Nepal Physics Society jointly organised the day in Kathmandu.

On the occasion, Former Minister for Science and Technology Er Ganesh Shah said that the space technology has become a must to have day to day instrument for commoners. Thus, researchers and experts need to make it more useful and accessible to all. Likewise, education on space technology has been an important aspect.

Prof. Dr. Narayan Prasad Chapagain, elaborated the usefulness and importance of space technology. He said that in the developed countries, many activities are carried out by weather forecasts for agriculture, tourism and even in fishing in the seas and oceans. He also said that study of satellite records even shown the indication of different waves before the Big Earthquake took place in Nepal in 2015. That was studied later from different coordinates. Thus, in future, space technology may support prediction of earthquakes and other movements to save people and property.

Achyutanand Mishra of Nepal Telecom Authority said that Nepal has formulated important space related rules and regulations through the Telecom Act. However, more such are needed for better functioning of space technology for the country.

Sushil Dev Bhattarai, an spacetech based educator said that educating on information technologies have been very important as such his institution is paying due attention in education and imparting knowledge to young ones in the schools and colleges. On the occasion, Anton Matlov, director of Russian House, Prof Dr Nilam Shrestha and chairman of Nepal Telecom Authority Purushottam Khanal, Vice President of Nepal Science Olympiad Kedar Nath Chhatkuli also spoke on the occasion.