Yuri Alekseyevich GagarinBorn 9 Mar 1934; died 27 Mar 1968 at age 34. Soviet cosmonaut whoon 12 Apr 1961becamethe first man to travel into space when he was 27 years old. He graduated from the Soviet Air Force cadet school in 1957. He volunteered to become a cosmonaut and joined a group of test pilots for training. Three days before the launch, he was informed he had been selected to pilot the Vostok 1 spacecraft. He orbited the Earth once in 1 hour 29 minutes at a maximum altitude of 187 miles (301 km). He never went into space again but trained other cosmonauts and toured several other nations. Gagarin was killed with another pilot in the crash of a two-seat jet aircraft while on what was described as a routine training flight. His ashes were placed in a niche in the Kremlin wall. |
