Yuri Gagarin: First Human Space Flight in Pictures

Yuri Gagarin Celebrated
Photograph by AP
Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin—honored today with a Google Doodle—waves from a car outside the Russian Embassy in London in July 1961, a few months after he became the first human to fly in space. Today marks the 50th anniversary of Gagarin's historic first orbit around Earth aboard the Vostok 1 spacecraft.
(Watch astronaut footage that re-creates what Yuri Gagarin saw.)
Upon his safe return, Gagarin was hailed as a hero, both at home and abroad, said Cathleen Lewis, the curator of international space programs and space suits at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum (NASM) in Washington, D.C.
"He was greeted with crowds and a great deal of warmth," Lewis said. "I think people really were fascinated. They looked beyond the Cold War aspect and looked to [Gagarin] as a hero of this science fiction fantasy of space flight."
—Ker Than
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Published April 12, 2011
Gagarin's Guidance System
Photograph by Veronika Lukasova, ZUMA Press/Corbis
Electrical components sheathed in glass make up part of the Vostok 1 guidance computer, housed at what is now the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.
Concerned about the effects of space flight on a human, Soviet engineers controlled Yuri Gagarin's flight entirely from the ground. (Watch clips from a film about space tourists flying out of Baikonour.)
Gagarin is the focus of a new book that is already causing controversy. Titled Starman: The Truth Behind the Legend of Yuri Gagarin, the book alleges that Gagarin sent a memo to a KGB officer that urged for a delay in the inaugural flight of the Soyuz 1 craft.
Launched in 1967, Soyuz 1 was a manned space flight that was supposed to perform a complex crew-swapping rendezvous in space with Soyuz 2, whose launch, scheduled for a day after Soyuz 1's, was eventually aborted. The mission was a disaster, and cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov was killed when Soyuz 1 crashed during its return to Earth.
NASM's Lewis and other historians do not believe the book's account, however.
"The book asserts that the engineers and astronauts and technicians knew the mission was doomed, and that Gagarin petitioned to have the flight postponed and was turned down," she said.
But "this is not consistent with the way things were previously done in the Soviet space program. They had postponed missions on numerous occasions for technical reasons."
(Also see "Apollo 11: Five Little-Known Facts About the Moon Landing.")
Published April 12, 2011
Gagarin Suited for the Job
Photograph by Rolls Press/Popperfoto/Getty Images
Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin sits decked out in his flight suit in a photograph taken in 1961, the same year he became the first human to fly in space.
According to NASM's Lewis, Gagarin was the first to utter a now standard refrain of astronauts upon his return: "When I orbited the Earth, I saw how beautiful our planet is. We must protect and preserve this beauty and not destroy it."
(See pictures of Earth from space.)
Published April 12, 2011
Gagarin's Ride
Photograph by Gamma-Keystone/Getty Images
Vostok 1, the spacecraft used by Yuri Gagarin during his first orbit of Earth, hangs on display in an undated photograph.
Soviet engineers were fairly confident that Gagarin's flight, despite being the first attempt of its kind, would be successful. After all, two unmanned test missions, including one carrying two dogs, Belka and Strelka, had gone off without a hitch. (Related pictures: "Space Monkeys 50-Year Anniversary.")
"They felt that they had very good odds," NASM's Lewis said. "They had tested the hardware, the launch vehicle, and the communications and tracking systems ... and they had simulated the mission without a human before. So they knew they could do it."
Strelka later gave birth to six puppies, one of which was given to Caroline Kennedy, daughter of U.S. President John F. Kennedy. The Soviets "celebrated the puppies as the final step in demonstrating that it was possible to send a human into space," Lewis said.
(Also see related pictures: "Millions of Puppy Mummies in Egypt Labyrinth.")
Published April 12, 2011
Launch of the Space Race
Photograph courtesy NASA
NASA engineers inspect a Mercury spacecraft—the vehicle that would eventually launch a U.S. astronaut into space for the first time—in a 1960 photograph.
When Gagarin launched into space in April 1961, NASA was still furiously playing catchup. Although his wasn't an orbital flight like Gagarin's, U.S. astronaut Alan Shepard became the second person in space on May 5, 1961. It would not be until February 20, 1962, that the United States would succeed in launching an astronaut, John Glenn, into orbit. (Take a related quiz about the U.S. National Air and Space Museum.)
"We often view the early cosmonauts and astronauts in terms of the Cold War, but what many people forget is that the dream of sending humans into space was centuries old," Lewis said.
"It was first postulated by Isaac Newton and expanded upon by [science fiction authors] Jules Verne and H.G. Wells. And those were the people the early rocket pioneers were reading in their younger years."
(See pictures of eight Jules Verne inventions that came true.)
Published April 12, 2011
Dancing for Gagarin
Photograph by James Whitmore, Time Life Pictures/Getty Images
Celebrants link arms and dance in Moscow's Red Square in honor of Yuri Gagarin's successful spaceflight in this 1961 photograph. Two days after he landed, Gagarin was escorted to Red Square in a parade and given the Hero Award of the Soviet Union.
"People said it was the largest crowd they had seen since Victory Day"—which celebrated the World War II defeat of Nazi Germany in May 1945, NASM's Lewis said.
From that point on, Gagarin had a new role as public spokesperson for the Soviet space program.
"He had a nice smile and was perfectly suited for what would become his job in the years following, which was a public personality," Lewis said.
"Every time you talk about Yuri Gagarin to Russians, be they people who grew up in the Soviet Union or immigrants, they all say Gagarin was the epitome of a nice young Russian boy. Even ardent anticommunists will say that."
Published April 12, 2011
Immortal Gagarin
Photograph by Natalia Kolesnikova/AFP/Getty Images
A statue of Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, pictured on April 8, is temporarily on display at the All-Russian Exhibition Center in Moscow as part of an international tour.
The statue is a replica of the Gagarin monument in Lyubertsy, a city in Moscow's southern outskirts where the cosmonaut attended school. The statue will be unveiled at its permanent home in London on July 4 as part of celebrations for the 50th anniversary of the first human in space.
"Gagarin and the early 1960s of space flight are one of the few things that have really survived the breakup of the Soviet Union," NASM's Lewis said.
"He's still celebrated in Russia and has a really strong contingency in many former Soviet republics ... People still marvel at this. His monuments are still in place, and children still know what April 12 is."
(Related pictures: "Humans in Space in 2057.")
Published April 12, 2011