Yuri Gagarin was born near Moscow, Russia on March 9, 1934
and was a son of a carpenter. Yuri joined the soviet air force in 1955, and by
1959 he was training to become a cosmonaut. In 1960 Gagarin was selected a long
with 19 other candidates for the Vostok one program. Eventually the program narrowed
down into two impossible candidate, Gagarin and Girman both had excellent
performance in their training and were short enough to fit in the Vostok
cockpit. Gagarin was perhaps selected because of his modest background which
suited Soviet Union propaganda, but also because the other candidates voted for
him, his excellent memory skills, fast reaction and mathematical skills.
At age
27 in the morning of April 12, 1961 cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin was held into his
spacesuit and made his way into the launch pad, he climbed into the Vostok
spacecraft wondering if he will come back to Earth but was calm. When the
engine started rumbling Gagarin said, “LETS GO!”, the spacecraft blasted off to
space then in 10 minutes the Vostok space craft separated from the lunch
rocket. Gagarin was in space, he crossed the Atlantic Ocean, Pacific Ocean as
the spacecraft passed by Africa, he prepared to re entry which will not be
easy, he orbited the Earth 108 minutes. As he made re-entry the cables joining
the Vostok’s command module and service module failed to detach properly almost
causing disaster as it violently shock Gagarin, until they eventually pulled
apart, as he re-enter the Earths atmosphere he experience forces up to 8 times
the pull of gravity but remained conscious, because the Vostok spacecraft had
no engines to slow down upon landing, Gagarin had to eject out and parachute
out to Earth, he landed safely. Yuri Gagarin was made a national hero of Soviet
Union and became a global celebrity, he died on March 27, 1968 during an
accident in a military training flight.
