Welcome to the Daily Sketch! We’ve teamed up with Sketchfab and expert VR artist Elizabeth Edwards to produce one new piece of 3D art per weekday throughout April you can view with your VR headset.
So grab your headset and take a look.
On April 12, 1961, Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first man in space, placing his name in the history books alongside other firsts like Neil Armstrong. It was a different time back then. The space race is often remembered for the ingenuity and spirit of exploration that found millions of people looking to the stars and gathering around televisions to witness momentous events in human history. It is easy to forget that a driving force of the conquest of space was to be certain one nation didn’t dominate it, threatening others with bombs seemingly dropped from the stars.
Perhaps we have people like Gagarin — greeted as a hero upon his return — to thank for that lasting sense of human accomplishment we remember from the space race of the 1960s. Edwards has done a fantastic job capturing his image for today’s sketch.
