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It was man's first encounter with the nether regions of space and the beginning of man's journey to the stars. He travelled on the Vostok 1 spacecraft and completed an orbit of the Earth in 1 hour 29 minutes.

Yuri Gagarin joined the Russian Air Force in 1955 and graduated with honors from the Soviet Air Force Academy in 1957. It was my duty to sleep so I slept." This is discipline and dedication at its best.

At the conclusion of his flight, he was subjected to the most intensive debriefing and scientific examination.

Yuri Gagarin flew only one space mission. As pilot of the spaceship Vostok 1, he proved that man could endure the rigors of lift-off, re-entry, and weightlessness, and yet still perform the manual operations essential to spacecraft flight.

Gagarin was superbly prepared for his encounter with history, both physically and technologically.

It was found in spite of the difficult and strange weightless environment, his great skill permitted him to work and to record important data which his fellow astronauts and scientific collaborators would find vital to future space flights.

His impressions of space flight are filled with words of poetry - joy - beauty - black sky - bright stars - these are the universal words of the pilot who knows and loves the firmament.

He graduated with honors from the Zhukovsky Air Force Engineering Academy in 1967.

Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin was called "The Columbus of The Cosmos," an apt and well-deserved title.

Colonel Yuri Gagarin died on March 27, 1968 when the MiG-15 he was piloting crashed near Moscow. These included the USSR's highest honour, Hero of the Soviet Union.

This took place during the Space Race. As was planned, Cosmonaut Gagarin ejected after reentry into Earth's atmosphere and landed by parachute. His epic 108 minute Earth orbital flight on April 12,1961, was far more than just a successful operational mission. It was a race against time to be the first to put a human into space.

In 1961, Yuri was the first person to travel to space.

At the highest point, Gagarin was about 327 kilometers above Earth. The light of the bright star of Yuri Gagarin was extinguished on March 27, 1968, when his aircraft crashed near Moscow.

Invested 1970 in the International Aerospace Hall of Fame

From "These We Honor," The International Hall of Fame; The San Diego Aerospace Museum, San Diego, CA.

1984

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Although the controls were locked, a key had been placed in a sealed envelope in case an emergency situation made it necessary for Gagarin to take control. This was a fight between the USSR and the USA to be the best at spaceflight.