Yuri Gagarin

Born March 9, 1934 (Klushino, Russia)

Died March 27, 1968 (Near Moscow, Russia)

Russian cosmonaut

In 1957 the former Soviet Union launched Sputnik, the first man-made space satellite (an object that orbits in space). Four years later, on April 12, 1961, Soviet cosmonaut (astronaut) Yuri Gagarin made a successful orbit of Earth aboard the spacecraft Vostok. As the first human to fly in space, Gagarin represented a technical triumph for the Soviet Union. Since the end of World War II (1939–45) the Soviet Union had been engaged in the Cold War (1945–91), a period of hostile relations, with the United States. The two world powers were not only competing for military superiority but also racing to be the first to explore space. Gagarin's achievement, therefore, signaled that the Soviet Union was moving ahead in the Cold War. Although Gagarin did not make another space flight, he remained a national hero and a leader in Russia's cosmonaut training program. His death during a training mission in 1968 was mourned throughout the Soviet Union.

"He invited us all into space."

Neil Armstrong, Aviation Week and Space Technology

Prepares for aviation career

Yuri Alekseevich Gagarin was born on March 9, 1934, the third of four children of Aleksey Ivanovich and Anna Gagarin.

The family lived on a collective farm in Klushino, Russia, where his father was a carpenter and his mother was a dairy-maid. Gagarin grew up helping them with their work. Lacking extensive formal education themselves, his parents encouraged him to stay in school in the nearby town of Gzhatsk. Gagarin's education was interrupted in 1941, however, when Germany invaded the Soviet Union during World War II. German troops evicted the Gagarins from their home, forcing them to live in a dug-out shelter. When the Germans retreated they took two of Gagarin's sisters with them as slave laborers. The sisters were able to return home after the war.

When the war was over, Gagarin completed school in Gzhatsk and moved to a suburb of Moscow to work in a steel factory. Apprenticing as a foundryman (a skilled steel worker), he attended a vocational college in Moscow. After a year he was accepted into a technical college in the town of Saratov. Prior to graduation in 1955 he began attending night courses in aviation at a nearby flying school, where he took his first airplane ride and made a parachute jump. This introduction to flying, Gagarin later wrote in Road to the Stars, "gave meaning to [his] whole life." He graduated from college with honors and also earned a diploma from the aviation school. The following summer he went to an aviation camp and learned how to fly. Gagarin was then accepted at the Orenburg Flight Training School, graduating two years later. In the town of Orenburg, Gagarin met Valentina Ivanova Goryacheva, a nursing student and his future wife. After graduation he joined the Soviet Air Force and volunteered for a difficult assignment in the Russian Arctic while Valentina finished nurse's training in Moscow. Yuri and Valentina were married in 1957; they later had two children, a daughter and a son.

In 1958 Gagarin joined the Communist Party, the political organization that controlled Soviet government and society. Since the first Sputnik flight the previous year, Gagarin had been closely following news of other Sputnik launches. He knew that manned space flights would be the next challenge, so he volunteered for the secret cosmonaut training program in 1959. The following year, just before his twenty-sixth birthday, he completed physical examinations and testing. After being accepted as a member of the first group of twelve cosmonauts, he could not tell even his wife that he was training to go into space. Finally, in 1961, he was allowed to reveal the truth when his family was settled into the new space-program complex called Zvezdniy Gorodok (Star Town), 40 miles (64 kilometers) from Moscow.

Pioneers human space flight

By the time Gagarin entered the cosmonaut program, the Soviets had been preparing for the first manned space flight for a year. In May 1960 they launched a series of Vostok test rockets. ("Vostok" is the Russian word for east.) Although the first two rockets failed, the third launched two dogs into space

Laika: First Animal in Space

In 1961 Yuri Gagarin made history as the first human to travel in space. The distinction of being the first living creature to orbit in space, however, is held by a Russian dog named Laika (Barker). A perky three-year-old mixed breed with pointy ears, Laika was launched from Earth on November 3, 1957, aboard Sputnik 2. Wearing a special harness, she traveled in a padded capsule equipped with life-support instruments. Electrodes had been attached to her body before takeoff so her reactions could be monitored by the ground control crew. Even though she was weightless during the flight, Laika was able to eat food and drink water. She also barked, and she could move around within the confines of her harness.

Sputnik 2 circled Earth for 163 days, completing 2,370 orbits. Laika was not alive when the spacecraft touched down on April 15, 1958. Soviet officials never released details of the flight, so it is not known how long she lived—estimates range from twenty-four hours to one week—or how she died. According to some theories, she was deliberately poisoned or gassed to prevent

her from suffering, but Russian scientists believe she died from extreme heat the day after the launch. In 1997 a plaque was placed at the Institute of Aviation and Space Medicine at Star City, in honor of Laika and other animals used for space experimentation. Laika's image has also appeared on postage stamps issued by many countries around the world.

and brought them safely back to Earth. The program was shut down for three months, however, after two rockets crashed with dogs on board in December 1960. The Vostok was then redesigned. After Sputnik 9 and Sputnik 10 were successfully launched in March 1961, the Soviets decided to go ahead with a Vostok manned flight. The final phase of the rocket was secretly assembled at the space center in Tyuratam in Kazakhstan, which was then a republic of the Soviet Union.

On April 8, 1961, Gagarin was selected to be the first human to go into space. Gherman Titov (1935–2000) was named as his backup, or the person who would take Gagarin's place if necessary. Two days later plans were finalized for a launch on April 12. At 5:00 a.m. on April 11 Vostok was towed to the launch pad, and at 1:00 p.m. Gagarin was driven to the site, accompanied by Sergei Korolev (1907–1966), the chief architect of the Soviet space program. After Gagarin was presented to the workers who had assembled the rocket, he and Korolev made final preparations for the launch.

Gagarin and Titov were awakened at 5:30 a.m. on April 12. Sensors were attached to their bodies to monitor pulse, blood pressure, and other functions. Two hours later Gagarin boarded Vostok, then waited ninety minutes for the final countdown. The spacecraft blasted off at 9:07 a.m., reaching a maximum pressure of six g's (six times the weight of gravity) in nine minutes. At 10:00 a.m. the manned Vostok mission was announced on Moscow radio.

Vostok was operated by a ground control crew. In the event of a malfunction, Gagarin would use a secret code that would allow him to operate the controls manually. Vostok reached an altitude of 327 kilometers and the flight proceeded smoothly. Gagarin was therefore free to make observations of Earth and to record his own reactions to being weightless. He proved that people can perform physical tasks, eat food, and drink liquids in space. Gagarin frequently commenting on the beauty of Earth from space—he was the first human to observe that Earth has a spherical shape. He also reported that weightlessness was a pleasant feeling. During the 108-minute flight Vostok made nearly one complete orbit of Earth. At 10:25 a.m., while passing over West Africa, the spacecraft reentered Earth's atmosphere. At an altitude of 26,247 feet (8,000 meters) the hatch of Vostok blew off and Gagarin parachuted to Earth, landing safely near the village of Smelovka in Russia.

Hailed as a hero

Although ejecting from a spacecraft was standard procedure for Vostok pilots, Soviet officials reported that Gagarin had remained aboard all the way to the ground. This was required for international certification of the Vostok flight as a record. Gagarin never revealed the truth, and for many

decades the Soviets concealed the actual facts of the landing. On April 14 Gagarin was presented to the public in Moscow as a hero. Greeted by Nikita Khrushchev (1894–1971), the leader of the Soviet Union, he appeared before an enormous crowd. Gagarin's mother and father also came from their village to greet him. The event was broadcast live throughout the world—another technological first.

Gagarin was instantly promoted to the rank of major and he made appearances around the world. In addition to being named a Hero of the Soviet Union and a Hero of Socialist Labor, he became an honorary citizen of fourteen cities in six countries. He received the Tsiolkovsky Gold Medal of the Soviet Academy of Sciences, the Gold Medal of the British Interplanetary Society, and two awards from the International Aeronautical Federation. Gagarin became commander of the cosmonaut team. In 1964 he was made deputy director of the cosmonaut training center at the space program headquarters complex, where he oversaw the selection and training of the first women cosmonauts. He served as capsule communicator (the link between cosmonauts and ground controllers) for four later space flights in the Vostok and Voskhod programs. He also held various political posts.

Dies in training crash

Gagarin always wanted to venture back into space. In 1966 he was returned to active status to serve as back-up cos monaut for Vladimir Komarov (1927–1967) in the first flight of the new Soyuz spacecraft. Soyuz 1 was launched on April 23, 1967, but Komarov died as the result of a parachute mal function on reentry. Gagarin was then assigned to command the upcoming Soyuz 3, but he would not fly the mission. On March 27, 1968, he took off for a routine proficiency flight in a two-seat MiG-15 training jet with his flight instructor. (A MiG jet is a Russian-made jet fighter designed to fly at an altitude of 80,000 feet [24,384 meters] and three times the speed of sound.) During low-level maneuvers with two other jets, Gagarin's plane crossed close behind another jet and was caught in its wind path. He lost control and the jet crashed into the tundra at high speed, instantly killing both Gagarin and the instructor. Gagarin was given a hero's funeral. At the time it was said that his ashes were buried in the wall of the Kremlin (the Soviet capitol building in Moscow). In 1984 it was revealed that his body was never found.

The cosmonaut training center was renamed in Gagarin's honor, as were his former hometown, a space tracking ship, and a lunar crater. His office at the center was preserved as a museum, and a huge statue of him was erected in Moscow. His book Survival in Space was published after his death. Writ ten with space-program physician Vladimir Lebedev, the work outlines Gagarin's views on the problems and requirements for successful long-term space flights. On April 12, 1991, thirty years after Gagarin's flight, his cosmonaut successors, along with eighteen American astronauts, gathered in Russia to salute his achievements.

For More Information

Books

Gagarin, Yuri. Road to the Stars. Translated by G. Hanna and D. Myshne. Moscow: Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1962.

Gagarin, Yuri, and Vladimir Lebedev. Psychology and Space. Translated by Boris Belitsky. Moscow: Mir Publishers, 1970.

Gagarin, Yuri, and Vladimir Lebedev. Survival in Space. Translated by Gabriella Azrael. New York: Bantam Books, 1969.

Oberg, James E. Red Star in Orbit. New York: Random House, 1981.

Periodicals

Oberg, James E. Aviation Week and Space Technology (April 8, 1991): p. 7.

Web Sites

Memorial to Laika.http://www.novareinna.com/bridge/laika.html (accessed on June 30, 2004).

"Yuri Gagarin." Guardian Unlimited.http://www.guardian.co.uk/netnotes/article/0,6729,470879,00.html (accessed on June 29, 2004).

"Yuri Gagarin." Starchild.http://starchild.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/StarChild/whos_who_level1/gagarin.html (accessed on June 29, 2004).

The Yuri Gagarin Cosmonauts Training Center.http://howe.iki.rssi.ru/GCTC/gctc_e.htm (accessed on June 29, 2004).

Gagarin, Yuri A. (1934-1968)

Russian cosmonaut

Yuri A. Gagarin was the first human in space . In 1961, the boyish-looking Soviet cosmonaut captured the attention of the world with his short flight around the earth. "He invited us all into space," American astronaut Neil Armstrong said of him, as quoted in Aviation Week and Space Technology.

The third of four children, Yuri Alekseevich Gagarin was born on a collective farm in Klushino, in the Smolensk region of the Russian Federation. His father, Aleksey Ivanovich Gagarin, was a carpenter on the farm and his mother, Anna, a dairymaid. Gagarin grew up helping them with their work. Neither of his parents had much formal education, but they encouraged him in his schooling. During World War II, the family was evicted from their home by invading German troops, and Gagarin's older brother and sister were taken prisoner for slave labor, though they later escaped.

After the war, Gagarin went to vocational school in Moscow, originally intending to become a foundry worker, and then he moved on to the Saratov Industrial Technical School. He was still learning to be a foundryperson, although his favorite subjects were physics and mathematics. In 1955, during his fourth and final year of school, he joined a local flying club. His first flight as a passenger, he later wrote in Road to the Stars, "gave meaning to my whole life." He quickly mastered flying, consumed by a new determination to become a fighter pilot. He joined the Soviet Air Force after graduation. The launch of Sputnik—the first artificial satellite sent into space—occurred on October 4, 1957, while he pursued his military and flight training. He graduated with honors that same year and married medical student Valentina Ivanova Goryacheva. They would have two children, a daughter and a son.

Gagarin volunteered for service in the Northern Air Fleet and joined the Communist Party. He followed closely news of other Sputnik launches; although there had been no official announcement, Gagarin guessed that preparations for manned flights would soon begin and he volunteered for cosmonaut duty. Gagarin completed the required weeks of physical examinations and testing in 1960, just before his twenty-sixth birthday. He was then told that he had been made a member of the first group of twelve cosmonauts. The assignment was a secret, and he was forbidden to tell even his wife until his family had settled into the new space-program complex called Zvezdniy Gorodok (Star Town), forty miles from Moscow. An outgoing, natural leader, the stocky, smiling Gagarin stood out even among his well-qualified peers. Sergei Korolyov, the head of the Soviet space program and chief designer of its vehicles, thought Gagarin had the makings of a first-rate scientist and engineer, as well as being an excellent pilot. In March of 1961, Korolyov approved the selection of Gagarin to ride Vostok I into orbit.

Senior Lieutenant Gagarin made history on April 12, 1961, when a converted ballistic missile propelled his Vostok capsule into Earth orbit from the remote Baikonur Cosmodrome. The Vostok was controlled automatically, and Gagarin spent his time reporting observations of the Earth and his own condition. He performed such tasks as writing and tapping out a message on a telegraph key, thus establishing that a human being's coordination remained intact even while weightless in space. Proving that people could work in space, he also ate and drank to verify that the body would take nourishment in weightlessness. He commented repeatedly on the beauty of the earth from space and on how pleasant weightlessness felt.

Gagarin rode his spacecraft for 108 minutes, ejecting from the spherical reentry module after the craft reentered the atmosphere just short of one complete orbit. Ejection was standard procedure for all Vostok pilots, although Gagarin dutifully supported the official fiction that he had remained in his craft all the way to the ground—a requirement for international certification of the flight as a record. Cosmonaut and capsule landed safely near the banks of the Volga River.

After doctors proclaimed him unaffected by his flight, Gagarin was presented to the public as an international hero. He received an instant promotion to the rank of major and made appearances around the world. He was named a Hero of the Soviet Union and a Hero of Socialist Labor, and he became an honorary citizen of fourteen cities in six countries. He received the Tsiolkovsky Gold Medal of the Soviet Academy of Sciences, the Gold Medal of the British Interplanetary Society, and two awards from the International Aeronautical Federation. The flight had many implications for international affairs: American leaders extended cautious congratulations and redoubled their own efforts in the space race, while the Soviet media proclaimed that Gagarin's success showed the strength of socialism.

Gagarin became commander of the cosmonaut team. In 1964, he was made deputy director of the cosmonaut training center at the space program headquarters complex—where he oversaw the selection and training of the first women cosmonauts. He served as capsule communicator—the link between cosmonauts and ground controllers—for four later space flights in the Vostok and Voskhod programs. At various times during this period, he also held political duties; he chaired the Soviet-Cuban Friendship Society and served on the Council of the Union and the Supreme Soviet Council of Nationalities.

Gagarin always wanted to venture back to space, and in 1966, he was returned to active status to serve as the backup cosmonaut to Vladimir Komarov for the first flight of the new Soyuz spacecraft. When the Soyuz 1 mission ended and Komarov died due to a parachute malfunction, Gagarin was assigned to command the upcoming Soyuz 3. But Gagarin himself did not live to fly the Soyuz 3 mission. On March 27, 1968, he took off for a routine proficiency flight in a two-seat MiG–15 trainer. He and his flight instructor became engaged in low-level maneuvers with two other jets. Gagarin's plane crossed close behind another jet and was caught in its vortex; he lost control and the jet crashed into the tundra at high speed, killing both occupants instantly.

Gagarin was given a hero's funeral. The Cosmonaut Training Center was renamed in his honor, as were his former hometown, a space tracking ship, and a lunar crater. His wife continued to work as a biomedical laboratory assistant at Zvezdniy Gorodok, and Gagarin's office there was preserved as a museum; a huge statue of him was erected in Moscow. His book Survival in Space was published posthumously. Written with space-program physician Vladimir Lebedev, the work outlines Gagarin's views on the problems and requirements for successful long-term space flights. On April 12, 1991, thirty years after Gagarin's flight, his cosmonaut successors, along with eighteen American astronauts, gathered at Baikonur to salute his achievements.

See also History of manned space exploration

GAGARIN, YURI ALEXEYEVICH

(1934–1968), cosmonaut; first human to orbit Earth in a spacecraft.

The son of a carpenter on a collective farm, Yury Gagarin was born in the village of Klushino, Smolensk Province. During World War II, facing the German invasion, his family evacuated to Gziatsk (now called Gagarin City). Gagarin briefly attended a trade school to learn foundry work, then entered a technical school. He joined the Saratov Flying Club in 1955 and learned to fly the Yak-18. Later that year, he was drafted and sent to the Orenburg Flying School, where he trained in the MIG jet. Gagarin graduated November 7, 1957, four days after Sputnik 2 was launched. He married Valentina Goryacheva, a nursing student, the day he graduated.

Gagarin flew for two years as a fighter pilot above the Arctic Circle. In 1958 space officials recruited air force pilots to train as cosmonauts. Gagarin applied and was selected to train in the first group of sixty men. Only twelve men were taken for further training at Zvezdograd (Star City), a training field outside Moscow. The men trained for nine months in space navigation, physiology, and astronomy, and practiced in a mockup of the spacecraft Vostok. Space officials closely observed the trainees, subjecting them to varied physical and mental stress tests. They finally selected Gagarin for the first spaceflight. Capable, strong, and even-tempered, Gagarin represented the ideal Soviet man, a peasant farmer who became a highly trained cosmonaut in a few short years. Sergei Korolev, the chief designer of spacecraft, may have consulted with Nikita Khrushchev, Russia's premier, to make the final selection.

Gagarin was launched in Vostok 1 on April 12, 1961, from the Baikonur Cosmodrome near Tyuratam, Kazakhstan. The Vostok spacecraft included a small spherical module on top of an instrument module containing the engine system, with a three-stage rocket underneath. Gagarin was strapped into an ejection seat. He did not control the spacecraft, due to uncertainty about how spaceflight would affect his physical and mental reactions. He orbited the earth a single time at an altitude of 188 miles, flying for one hour and forty-eight minutes. He then ejected from the spacecraft at an altitude of seven kilometers, parachuting into a field near Saratov. His mission proved that humans could survive in space and return safely to earth.

Gagarin was sent on a world tour to represent the strength of Soviet technology. A member of the Communist Party since 1960, he was appointed a deputy of the Supreme Soviet and named a Hero of the Soviet Union. He became the commander of the cosmonaut corps and began coursework at the Zhukovsky Institute of Aeronautical Engineering. An active young man, Gagarin often felt frustrated in his new life as an essentially ceremonial figure. There were many reports of Gagarin's resulting depression and hard drinking. In 1967, however, he decided to train as a backup cosmonaut in anticipation of a lunar landing.

On March 27, 1968, Gagarin conducted a test flight with a senior flight instructor near Moscow. The plane crashed, killing both men instantly. Gagarin's tragic death shocked the public in the USSR and abroad. A special investigation was conducted amid rumors that Gagarin's drinking caused the crash. Since then, investigators have indicated other possible causes, such as poor organization and faulty equipment at ground level.

Gagarin received a state funeral and was buried in the Kremlin Wall. American astronauts Neil Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin left one of Gagarin's medals on the moon as a tribute. The cosmonaut training center where he had first trained was named after him. A crater on the moon bears his name, as does Gagarin Square in Moscow with its soaring monument, along with a number of monuments and streets in cities throughout Russia. At Baikonur, a reproduction of his training room is traditionally visited by space crews before a launch. Russians celebrate Cosmonaut Day on April 12 every year in honor of Gagarin's historic flight.

See also: space program

bibliography

Gagarin, Yuri. (1962). Road to the Stars, told to Nikolay Denisov and Serhy Borzenko, ed. N. Kamanin, tr. G. Hanna and D. Myshnei. Moscow: Foreign Languages Publishing House.

Gurney, Clare, and Gurney, Gene. (1972). Cosmonauts in Orbit: The Story of the Soviet Manned Space Program. New York: Franklin Watts.

Johnson, Nicholas L. (1980). Handbook of Soviet Manned Space Flight. San Diego, CA: Univelt.

Riabchikov, Evgeny. (1971). Russians in Space, tr. Guy Daniels. New York: Doubleday.

Shelton, William. (1969). Soviet Space Exploration: The First Decade, intro. by Gherman Titov. London: Barker.

Phyllis Conn

Yuri Alexeivich Gagarin

The Russian cosmonaut Yuri Alexeivich Gagarin (1934-1968) was the first man to orbit the earth in an artificial satellite and thus ushered in the age of manned spaceflight.

Yuri Gagarin the third child of Alexei Ivanovich, a carpenter on a collective farm, and Anna Timofeyevna, was born on March 9, 1934, in the village of Klushino, Smolensk Province. Yuri attended an elementary school in Gzhatsk; in the sixth grade he began to study physics. At the age of 15 he became an apprentice foundryman in an agricultural machinery plant outside Moscow and enrolled in an evening school.

In 1951 Gagarin transferred to the Saratov Industrial Technical School. In 1955 he had to prepare a thesis in order to graduate. His problem was to design a foundry capable of producing 9,000 tons (metric) of castings a year. The state examining committee accepted his thesis, and he received his diploma.

Gagarin joined the Saratov Flying Club in 1955 and won his wings, learning to fly in the Yak-18. Late that year he was drafted and sent to the famous Orenburg Flying School, since he already had a pilot's license. He was disconcerted to learn that he would not be immediately put into jet planes. After he became an aviation cadet on Jan. 8, 1956, he was permitted to fly—but not in the jets he coveted. He started out all over again in the familiar Yak-18, learning to fly it the air force way. That year he also began flight training in the MIG jet.

Cosmonaut Selection and Training

On Oct. 4, 1957, Sputnik 1, the world's first artificial satellite, was orbited by the Soviet Union. Four days after Sputnik 2, on Nov. 7, 1957, Gagarin graduated from the flying school and was commissioned a lieutenant in the Soviet air force. On the same day he married Valentina Goryacheva.

Gagarin spent 2 years as a fighter pilot at an airfield above the Arctic Circle. By 1958 the Soviet government was asking for volunteers from the air force to pilot its spacecraft. On Oct. 5, 1959, Gagarin made formal application for cosmonaut training; he was selected in the first group of pilots. In 1960 the original group of 50 had been whittled down to 12, and these men moved to Zvezdograd (Star City), a newly built holding and training area in a suburb of Moscow.

For Gagarin and his 11 classmates training began in earnest. They were introduced to a bewildering curriculum of space navigation, rocket propulsion, physiology, astronomy, and upper atmospheric physics and were trained on special devices to accustom them to the physiological stresses of space flight. More to Gagarin's liking were the long hours spent in the mock-up of the Vostok, an exact replica of the spacecraft in which he would later orbit the earth. After only 9 months of training the cosmonauts were told that the first flight of the Vostok would be on April 12, 1961.

Orbiting Earth

The selection of Gagarin as the first man to orbit earth was assured when each cosmonaut was asked to designate who should be the one to make the flight; 60 percent named Gagarin. He was launched in Vostok 1 on the planned date, and during the crowded 1 hour 48 minutes of his single orbit of the earth he proved that man could survive in space and perform useful tasks. His mission ended at 10:55 A.M., when he landed safely in a field near Saratov.

Following his mission, Gagarin became the commander of the cosmonaut detachment at Zvezdograd, a position he held until April 1965, when he briefly reentered mission training as a backup cosmonaut. During this period he also enrolled in the Zukovsky Institute of Aeronautical Engineering, where he began a 5-year course leading to a degree.

On March 27, 1968, Gagarin died in a plane crash outside Moscow while on a routine training flight. He was given a state funeral and was buried in the Kremlin wall facing Red Square. At the request of his wife, American astronauts Neil Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin left one of Gagarin's medals on the moon as a tribute to the world's first man in space.

Further Reading

The most accessible biography for the student is Mitchell R. Sharpe, Yuri Gagarin: First Man in Space (1969). Less readily obtainable is Road to the Stars: Notes by Soviet Cosmonaut No. 1 (1961; trans. 1962), written by N. Denisov and S. Borzenko and printed in English by the Foreign Languages Publishing House in Moscow. Some biographical material is in William Shelton, Soviet Space Exploration: The First Decade (1968). □

Gagarin, Yuri

Russian Cosmonaut; First Human in Space 1934-1968

On April 12, 1961, at age twenty-seven, Yuri Gagarin, of the Soviet Union, became the first human in space. He completed one orbit of Earth before descending in his Vostok 1 spacecraft and parachuting the last 3 kilometers (2 miles) to the ground. Instantly, this Russian from a collective farm in Klushino became a world hero and household name.

After graduating from high school, Gagarin attended a machinery school to train as an ironworker. He then attended the industrial and technical school in Saratov. While there, he joined a flying club and became an amateur pilot. On the recommendation of an instructor he was accepted into the Orenburg Aviation School in 1955. Gagarin trained as a fighter pilot with the Northern Fleet. Inspired by the Soviet Union's Luna 3 satellite, which was the first to return images of the Moon's farside, he applied to become a cosmonaut and was accepted.

Gagarin's orbital flight in 1961 was a pivotal moment in the "space race" between the Soviet Union and the United States. The United States sent Alan Shepard into space on a suborbital flight three weeks after Gagarin's flight. After his orbital flight, Gagarin made many public appearances and in 1966 began training for a Soyuz flight. Unfortunately, at the age of thirty-four, he and a flight instructor were killed in the crash of their MiG-15 training jet.

see also Cosmonauts (volume 3); Government Space Programs (volume 2); History of Humans in Space (volume 3); Shepard, Alan (volume 3).

Meridel Ellis

Bibliography

Englebert, Phillis, ed. Astronomy and Space. Detroit, MI: UXL, 1997.