On March 9, 2014, Yury Gagarin, the first man in space, would have celebrated his 80th birthday.
“A pilot must fly, always fly,” Yury Gagarin wrote in his diary in the spring of 1968 shortly before his death in a Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-15-UTI Midget fighter crash. On March 9, 2014, Yury Gagarin, the first man in space, would have celebrated his 80th birthday. Photo: Yury Gagarin inside the Vostok spacecraft before lifting off on April 12, 1961.
In 1955, Yuri Gagarin performed his first solo flight in a Yakovlev Yak-18 Max primary training aircraft and decided to pursue a career in aviation.
On December 18, 1959, Gagarin was summoned to the Moscow-based Central Research Aviation Hospital for a medical checkup and declared fit for space flight in early 1960.
Photo: 1960. Yury Gagarin at a space flight training session.
Photo: 1960. Yury Gagarin at a space flight training session.
On April 8, 1961, it was finally decided that Gagarin would be the first man to fly to space. Photo: 1961. Sergei Korolyov, a Member of the Soviet Academy of Sciences and Chief Designer of Rockets and Spacecraft, and Pilot-Cosmonaut of the USSR Yury Gagarin shortly before launch.
Yury Gagarin lifted off in the early morning of April 12, 1961. At that time, only the Soviet leaders and those who had prepared the orbital flight knew about his trailblazing space journey.
Photo: April 12, 1961. Yury Gagarin and his backup man, German Titov, heading for the Baikonur Space Center.
Photo: April 12, 1961. Yury Gagarin and his backup man, German Titov, heading for the Baikonur Space Center.
April 12, 1961. Yury Gagarin after landing in the Saratov Region.
April 14, 1961. Yury Gagarin walking toward Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev at Vnukovo airfield outside Moscow. He will be reporting on his successful space mission in a few moments.
The 108-minute space flight changed Yury Gagarin’s life forever. The former pilot of an Air Force fighter regiment became the most famous person in the world overnight.
Thousands of people waited to see him. National leaders and celebrities also wanted to meet with Gagarin.
1966. Cosmonaut Yury Gagarin with his daughters.
Yury Gagarin became famous all over the world. Less than a month after his space flight, Gagarin traveled abroad for the first time. The first man in space went on a so-called Peace Mission, visiting Czechoslovakia, Finland, the United Kingdom, Bulgaria and Egypt.
