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Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin (Russian
language|Russian: Юрий Алексеевич
Гагарин; YOO-ree a-lek-SE-ye-veech
ga-GA-reen; March 9, 1934 – March 27, 1968), was
a Soviet Union|Soviet cosmonaut who in 1961 became
the first human to travel into space.

==Early Life==
Yuri Gagarin was born near Gzhatsk, and his
parents worked on a collective farm. While manual
labourers are described in official reports as
"peasants", this is something of an exaggeration;
his mother was reportedly a voracious reader, and
his father a skilled carpenter. The third of four
children, his elder sister helped raise him while
his parents worked. Like millions of Russians, the
Gagarin family suffered great hardship in World
War II. His two elder siblings were taken away to
Germany in 1943, and did not return until after
the war. Gagarin himself was described as an
intelligent, hard-working, if occasionally
mischievous boy by his teachers. His mathematics
teacher flew in the Red Army Air Force during the
war, which presumably made some substantial
impression on the young Gagarin.

After starting an apprenticeship in a metalworks,
Gagarin was selected for further training at a
technical school in Saratov. While there, he
joined the "AeroClub", and learned to fly a light
aircraft, a hobby that began to take up an
increasing proportion of his time. Through dint of
effort, rather than brilliance, he reportedly
mastered both; in 1955, after completing his
technical schooling, he entered military flight
training at the Orenberg Pilot's School.  While
there he met Valentina Gorycheva, whom he married
in 1957, after gaining his pilot's wings in a
MiG-15. After graduating, he was posted at an
airbase near Murmansk, where terrible weather made
flying risky. As a full-grown man, Gagarin was 5
foot 2 inches (approx. 157.5cm) tall.

==Career in Soviet Space Program==

===Selection and Training===
In 1960, an extensive search and selection process
saw Gagarin, amongst 20 other cosmonauts, selected
for the space programme of the USSR|Soviet space
program. Along with the other prospective
cosmonauts, he was subjected to a punishing series
of experiments designed to test his physical and
psychological endurance, as well as training
relating to the upcoming flight. Out of the 20
selected, eventually the choice for the first to
launch was between Gagarin and Gherman Titov,
because of their excellent performance in
training, as well as their physical
characteristics - space was at a premium in the
small Vostok cockpit. The choice of Gagarin,
ultimately approved at the highest levels, was
probably made due to Gagarin's modest upbringing
and genial, outgoing personality, as distinct from
the middle-class and somewhat aloof Titov.

===Space Flight===

On April 12, 1961, Gagarin became the first human
to travel into outer space|space (see Vostok 1).
His call sign in this flight was Siberian
Pine|Cedar (Russian language|Russian: Кедр).
According to international media, from orbit
Gagarin made the comment, "I don't see any god up
here." There are however no such words in the full
verbatim record of Gagarin's conversations with
the Earth during the spaceflight
http://gagarin.cbs.org.ru/gagarin/files/efir.doc

While in orbit Gagarin was promoted "in the field"
from the lowly rank of Second Lieutenant to Major
- and this was the rank at which TASS announced
him in its triumphant statement during the flight.
At the time the Soviet authorities thought it was
more likely he would perish during his descent
than survive.

Returning to Earth, Gagarin became very famous.
Nikita Khrushchev rushed to his side and Gagarin
issued a statement praising the Communist Party of
the Soviet Union as the "organiser of all our
victories". He then toured the world.

Khrushchev saw Gagarin's achievement as a
vindication of his policy of strengthening the
Soviet Union's missile forces at the expense of
conventional arms. This policy antagonised the
Soviet military establishment and contributed to
Khrushchev's eventual downfall.

===Post-Space Flight Activities===
After the flight, Gagarin became an instant,
worldwide celebrity, touring widely to promote the
Soviet achievement. He proved quite adept at
handling the publicity. However, it appeared to
gradually wear him down, and he began to drink
heavily - not helped by difficulties in his
marriage. In October 1961 he severely injured
himself in a drunken holiday escapade with a young
nurse in the Crimea.

From 1962 he served as a deputy to the Supreme
Soviet, but later returned to "Star City", the
cosmonaut facility, where he worked on designs for
a reusable spacecraft. In 1967, he was selected as
backup for the first Soyuz spacecraft|Soyuz
launch. The Soyuz capsule's parachute failed
during reentry and the craft crashed, killing
Vladimir Komarov.

==Death and Legacy==


Gagarin then became deputy training director of
the establishment. In the process of this, he
began to requalify as a fighter pilot. On March
27, 1968 he was killed in a crash of a MiG-15 on a
routine training flight near Moscow together with
his instructor. It is uncertain what caused the
crash, but a 1986 inquest suggests that the
turbulence from a Su-11 interceptor airplane using
 its Afterburner (engine)|afterburners may have
caused Gagarin's plane to go out of control.
Weather conditions were also poor, which probably
contributed to the inability of Gagarin and the
instructor to correct before they crashed. Rumor
that he was drunk is incorrect — he passed
two medical examinations before the flight, and
postmortem tests found no evidence of alcohol or
drugs in his system.  A new theory, advanced by
the original crash investigator in 2005,
hypothesises that a cabin vent was accidentally
left open by the crew or the previous pilot, thus
leading to oxygen deprivation and leaving the crew
incapable of controlling the aircraft
http://scotlandonsunday.scotsman.com/international
.cfm?id=352912005.


The Russian press reported he stayed with the
aircraft to avoid it hitting a school, although
this may have been apocryphal.

Although Gagarin is indisputably the first man to
survive space travel, there is a conspiracy theory
that the Russians had previously launched two
human beings into orbit prior to Gagarin, but both
cosmonauts died en route or alternatively, one
died while one landed off-course and was held by
the Chinese government.  The subject named most
often in these theories is Vladimir Ilyushin, son
of the famous Russian airplane designer.  The
Soviet government then supposedly suppressed this
information to prevent bad publicity for their
space program. According to Gagarin's biography,
Starman, these rumours were likely started in a
similar manner to the Roswell UFO incident|Roswell
conspiracy theories; two Vostok missions, equipped
with dummies and tape recordings of the human
voice (to check if the radio worked), were made in
the period just before Gagarin's flight.



==See also==

commons|Yuri Gagarin
* Soviet space program
* Space Race
* Yuri's Night is an international celebration
held on April 12 every year to commemorate the
first human in space and the first space shuttle
launch.

==References==
* Michael D Cole Vostok 1: First Human in Space,
Enslow Publishers, Inc. Aldershot, UK,
Springfield, New Jersey, 1995. ISBN 0894905414.

* Doran, Jamie, and Bizony, Piers: Starman: The
Truth Behind the Legend of Yuri Gagarin, London:
Bloomsbury Publishing, 1998 (paperback version,
1999). ISBN 074754278.

==External links==
* http://www.abamedia.com/rao/gallery/gagarin/
Yuri Gagarin:His Life in Pictures

*
http://epizodsspace.testpilot.ru/bibl/gagarin/doro
ga/obl.html Юрий Гагарин. Дорога
в космос - his book in Russian (HTML)

* http://www.rgantd.ru/gag70_cd/start_me.htm 
Photo, Audio and Video with Yuri Gagarin (in
Russian), online version of CD created to his 70th
anniv. on the homepage of Russian state archive
for scientific-technical documentation (RGANTD).

* http://www.rtc.ru/encyk/gagarin/main1.shtml
Article in online Encyclopedia of cosmonautics A
lot of information about the first human's flight
to space (in Russian).

* http://www.astronautix.com/astros/gagarin.htm
Gagarin - detailed biography at
http://www.astronautix.com Encyclopedia
Astronautica

* http://www.ffagency.com/gagarin/ List (with
photos) of Gagarin statues