White hair chronicles LXII: 50 years of human in space

This week marks the 50th anniversary of man in space. On April 12, 1961, Russia's Yuri Gagarin made a 108-minute orbital flight aboard the Vostok 1. Gagarin's short stature (5'2" or  1.57m), on top of his outstanding training and intellect, made him the prime candidate for the post, considering the space challenged (pun intended) cockpit of the spacecraft.

Today, commercial space tour flights are just around the corner. Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic accepts booking for a place in their future space flights. Tickets are at a hefty $200,000 (8.7 million piso) or about the price of two second hand luxury cars of Pnoy, or half of Mikey's purported share in the SFO house that he sold. Come to think of it, Mikey and wife can go buy tickets to space with their earnings from the sale.