The Mysterious Death of Yuri Gagarin

On a snowy, blustery morning in March 1968, a two-man MiG-15 UTI jet took off from Chkalov air force base outside Moscow on a routine training flight. Barely ten minutes later, the aircraft’s pilot radioed air traffic control, announcing it was cutting its flight short and requesting permission to land. Then, the transmission went dead. At nearby Kirzhach airfield, a group of cosmonauts undergoing parachute training heard two loud explosions in the distance, and dispatched a flight of six helicopters to investigate. Three hours later, the search team discovered a smoking crater in a birch forest just outside the village of Kirzhach. And though the aircraft had been all but vaporized on impact, it did not take long to identify the pilots. One was Colonel Vladimir Seryogin, an experienced test pilot, flight instructor, and war hero who had flown more than 200 combat missions during the Second World War. The other was possibly the most famous man in the Soviet Union – if not the world: Colonel Yuri Gagarin, who seven years earlier on April 12, 1961 had made history by becoming the first human to travel beyond the atmosphere and orbit the earth. The death of this national hero at the age of only 34 shocked the Soviet people and sent the nation into mourning. It also raised questions as to the exact circumstances of his death – questions that linger to the present day. Was it a simple accident? A case of negligence or pilot error? Or were there more sinister forces at play? This is the story of the mysterious death of the first man in space.

Yuri Alekseievich Gagarin was born on March 9, 1934 in the village of Klushino, Smolensk Oblast, the son of Aleksei Gagarin, a carpenter, and Anna Timofeevna Gagarina, a dairy maid. He was the third of four children born to the Gagarin household, preceded by brother Valentin in 1924 and sister Zoya in 1927 and followed by brother Boris in 1936. Early on there were few indications that Yuri – known to his close friends as “Yura” – was destined for greatness, his mother stating in a later interview: “He grew up like all the other boys in the village.”

Gagarin started school in 1941, but his education was soon interrupted by Operation Barbarossa, the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union. The Gagarin house was commandeered by a German officer, who forced the family to live in a small 3×3 metre earth dugout in the back yard. Throughout the occupation the Germans harassed and abused the villagers, with one soldier attempting to hang Gagarin’s younger brother Boris from a tree by his scarf. In retaliation, Yuri turned to sabotage, pouring soil and other contaminants into vehicle batteries and disabling motorcycles by stuffing garbage into their exhaust pipes. When the Germans were finally forced to retreat from Smolensk in 1943, they took Valentin and Zoya Gagarin with them, deporting them to Poland for use as forced labour. Miraculously, they survived the war, and were later reunited with the family in the village of Gzhatsk.

After finishing his interrupted education in 1949, Yuri Gagarin attended trade school in the city of Luybertsy and worked briefly as a moulder in a steel foundry. Then, in October 1954, while completing additional training at the Saratov Specialized School of Industrial Technology, he, along with four friends, signed up for flying lessons at the local aero club. The only one in his friend group to complete the course, Gagarin performed his first parachute jump on May 18, 1955 and his first flight with an instructor on July 2. He soon graduated with just 42 hours and 23 minutes of flight time in his logbook. Soon after, Gagarin applied and was accepted into the 1st Chkalovsky Higher Air Force Pilots School in Orenburg as an aviation cadet. As he later explained:

“I did not become an air force pilot by chance. During the war we boys felt powerless. Certainly, we did what we could to hurt the Nazis; we would sprinkle nails and broken glass on the road to puncture the tyres of their cars…but when we were older we realized how important our country’s security is. And that was what led me to make the choice I did – I dreamed of becoming an air force pilot.”

But realizing this dream proved more challenging than expected. Twice while qualifying on the MiG-15 fighter jet, Gagarin approached the runway at too steep an angle, forcing the instructor to take control of the aircraft. Given the Soviet Air Force’s strict requirements for graduation, it seemed certain that Gagarin would wash out. Then, one day, the Commander of his regiment, Ivan Polshkov, came across Gagarin exercising alone in the rain. Impressed by the cadet’s dedication, Polshkov approached his flying instructor and asked to review his expulsion papers. The instructor suggested that the problem might be Gagarin’s short stature – he was only 5’ 2” tall – and agreed to give him a third chance to complete his training flight. This time, however, he placed a cushion under Gagarin’s seat, providing him a better view of the runway. While the resulting landing was a bit rough, it was still within acceptable limits and Gagarin was allowed to move forward to solo flights. Ironically, Gagarin’s height would later prove a major factor in his selection as a cosmonaut.

From this point on, Gagarin’s career went from strength to strength. In his second year of training he was appointed assistant platoon commander and also met his future wife, Valentina Gorycheva. As she later recalled:

“When I first met Yuri I was a nursing student, and strange to say I was part of a nurse’s gymnastic brigade participating in the Moscow may day celebrations. What do I remember of our first meeting? Let’s see; first of all an overexcited cadet and my friend Helena giggling : ‘If you want to get a general you must start off with a Lieutenant.’”

Meanwhile, Gagarin stated that:

“My priorities [at the time] were my hair, flying school, and chasing Valentina.”

Yuri and Valentina were married in a Moscow Registry Office on October 27, 1957. A week later on November 5, Yuri graduated from the Air Force Pilots School with 166 hours, 47 minutes of flight time under his belt and was promoted to the rank of Lieutenant. He was then assigned to Luostari air base in Murmansk, north of the Arctic Circle on the Kola Peninsula. He was joined by Valentina after she completed nursing school, and on April 10, 1959 they welcomed their first daughter, Yelena, into the world.

By this time, the Soviet Union was stunning the world with a series of space spectaculars. On October 4, 1957, they launched Sputnik 1, the world’s first artificial satellite into orbit. This was followed less than one month later by Sputnik 2, which carried the first living animal – a dog named Laika – into orbit. Meanwhile, the United States struggled to keep up, suffering the embarrassing public failure of the Vanguard rocket before finally placing their own satellite, Explorer 1, into orbit on February 1, 1958 – and for more on this forgotten chapter of U.S. space exploration, please check out our previous video ‘Kaputnik’: America’s Largely Forgotten Disastrous First Attempt to Launch a Satellite.

Even in these early days of the “Space Race”, it was clear to all that the next major step would be to place a man into orbit. As Gagarin recalled shortly after the launch of Sputnik 1:

“I drew a spaceship in my notebook and again felt the familiar, somewhat obsessive and not yet recognized urge; that same attraction to space, which I was afraid to acknowledge, even to myself.”

In October 1959, shortly after the successful flight of Luna 3 – the first spacecraft to photograph the far side of the moon – Gagarin write a letter to his commanding officer, Lieutenant Colonel Babushkin, volunteering for any duties:

“…in connection with the expansion of space exploration going on in the U.S.S.R. [in which] people may be required for manned spaceflights. I request you to take note of my own ardent desire, and should the possibility present itself, to send me for special training.”

He would not have to wait long to get his wish.

Strangely, though the Soviets were the first to orbit a satellite and launch probes to the moon, they were considerably slower in putting together a manned space programme. Indeed, while the newly-formed National Aeronautics and Space Administration or NASA announced the first slate of American astronauts – the so-called “Mercury Seven” – on April 9, 1959, the Soviets would not make their first cosmonaut selections until nearly a year later. And unlike the Mercury Seven, who became instant celebrities before ever making a single spaceflight, the first Soviet cosmonauts would remain a closely-guarded secret, their names not revealed to the public until they had successfully reached orbit. Indeed, while the American space program was a transparent undertaking carried out in full view of the public, its Soviet counterpart was overseen by the military and shrouded in official secrecy. This played neatly into the hands of the Soviet propaganda machine, allowing the Kremlin to cover up any failed launches and give the impression of an unbroken string of successful missions.

Yet despite these glaring differences, when it came to deciding what kind of person was best suited for space travel, both programmes came to very similar conclusions. As Vladimir Yazdovsky, the founder of Soviet space medicine, later explained:

“The candidates might be chosen from the ranks of fighter pilots, submariners, rocket specialists, racing car drivers or members of other physically challenging professions. The aviation physicians among us knew that fighter pilots would have more relevant background than the others since their training includes exposure to hypoxia, high pressure, g-loads along various axes, and ejection by catapult. It seemed obvious to us that cosmonaut candidates ought to be fighter pilots, and this view was fully shared by [rocket designer Sergei] Korolev and his colleagues. The Council of Chief Designers also insisted that the selection should be made by aviation physicians reporting to me under the supervision of the Medical Flight Commission and with the approval of the Chief Physician of the Air Force, Alexander N. Babiychuk.

The physicians were well aware that the fighter pilots in our air force were very similar in age, health, and flight experience. It was therefore unnecessary to go looking for cosmonaut candidates in the Urals, Siberia, and the Russian Far East. The search would be limited to the European part of our country. Korolev went before the team of physicians entrusted with the selection task and formulated his requirements regarding a future cosmonaut: Age maximum 30, maximum height 170 centimetres. He was asked how many cosmonauts should be chosen. ‘A lot’, he replied with a smile. ‘The Americans have chosen seven men – and we need many more.’ His answer created some bewilderment, but nobody made any comment. Everybody understood that it was not one or two flights that were being planned, but a much greater number.”

The search for the first cosmonauts began in mid-1959 under the auspices of the Central Medical Aviation Commission, based out of the Central Military Scientific Aviation Hospital in Moscow. Though the Commission attempted to keep the nature of their search secret, word soon leaked out to several air force bases, whose commanders submitted the names of nearly 1,000 potential candidates. And while physical disqualifications like height, weight, age, and chronic diseases helped narrow down the list, eventually the Commission’s doctors had no choice but to interview the candidates themselves. On October 12, 1959, they visited Murmansk air force base, whose commander had selected 12 men for evaluation – including Lieutenants Grigori Shonin and Yuri Gagarin. As Shonin later recalled:

“This was a bit of a poser. What did the doctors want with me? They asked me to sit down and began asking questions. We talked about the usual, perhaps I should say, boring things: how was I enjoying the air force, did I like flying, had I become adapted to the far north, what did I do in my free time, what did I read, and so on…I left the office and met my comrades’ questioning looks, but as I didn’t have any sensible answer, I could only shrug my shoulders.

…[during my second interview] I was asked detailed questions about my flying experience starting from my first flights in air school. They listened to my answers very attentively even though they must have known it all: they had my flight long on the table before them.

‘And if it were a question of flying something of a completely new type?’ [they asked]

‘I’m a fighter pilot. I specially chose a flying school where I would be taught to fly jet fighters and you…’

‘No, no, you don’t understand. What we’re talking about are long-distance flights, flights on rockets, flights around the world.’

Even though there were quite a few satellites in space by then, manned flights were still an idea from the realm of the fantastic. Even amongst us pilots, no one spoke seriously about such a thing.”

Indeed, according to Vladimir Yazdovsky, most of the interviewed candidates were similarly reserved in their answers:

“One of the Moscow physicians reported that 90 percent of their interviewees had asked whether they would be flying conventional aircraft. The candidates obviously enjoyed their profession and were proud of their rank as military pilots. Approximately three out of ten declined the offer immediately, not necessarily because they were afraid, but usually because they liked the Air Force, their teams, and their friends. They had a clear vision of their future military and professional careers. Many had a well-established family life which they were reluctant to give up in exchange for vague promises. There was a general rule that any candidate could decline at any stage without giving his reasons. Some asked to be allowed to consult their wives or family; others gave their agreement immediately or only after lengthy consideration. They most frequently asked question was how long they would have to wait to do whatever we were promising them. Would they have to wait until retirement? That would be okay, they said, except that meanwhile they had families to support.”

With the interviews complete, the pilots returned to their regular duties, not knowing when – or if – they would be summoned for further evaluation. For Gagarin and Shonin, that day came on January 14, 1960, when they were ordered to report to the Central Military Scientific Aviation Hospital in Moscow for a battery of medical testing. Overseen by Colonel Yevgeny Karpov, these tests were the most thorough and intensive Soviet medicine could devise, as Yuri Gagarin later recalled:

“It was not at all like our yearly pilots’ medicals. We pilots were used to these and saw nothing terrible about them. But here, beginning with the very first specialist – the oculist as it happened – I understood how serious it was going to be. My eyes were checked very thoroughly. One had to have perfect vision; that is to be able to read all the required letters and signs on the chart from top to bottom., from the biggest to smallest. I was carefully checked for a concealed squint, my night vision was verified, and my retina was also assiduously examined. Instead of going to the oculist only once, I had to go seven times, and each time we went through everything from the start: the charts with letters and signs, colour sensitivity tests, look with your right eye, look with your left eye, look here, look there…He searched and searched but was unable to find even a hint of a fault in my eyes.

There was also a test of ability to work in unusual and difficult conditions. The task was to solve certain arithmetical problems with figures that first had to be found in a special chart. Both speed and correctness of answer were taken into account. At first glance, it seemed it would be relatively easy to solve the problem. Then suddenly a loudspeaker was tuned on and a monotonous voice began to prompt answers. It became much harder to concentrate, and one had to force oneself to continue calculating without paying any mind to this “obsequious friend.” It was tough. Incidentally, this was only the beginning; worse was yet to come.

There were a lot of doctors and each one was as stern as a state prosecutor. There was no appeal against their sentences. Doctors of all sorts, inducing therapeutists, neuropathologists, surgeons and ear-nose-and-throat specialists examined us. We were tested from head to toe: little hammers were tapped all over our bodies, we were twisted about on special devices, and the vestibular apparatus of our ears was checked….Our hearts were the main object of their examination. The doctors could read our whole life history from them. One couldn’t hide a single thing. Complicated instruments detected everything, even the tiniest cracks in our health.”

Of the 154 qualified pilots short-listed for evaluation, 29 passed the medical tests, and of these 20 were selected to be the Soviet Union’s first corps of cosmonauts. The list was finalized – but not publicly announced – on February 25, 1960: Ivan N. Anikeyev, Pavel I. Belyayev, Valentin V. Bondarenko, Valery F. Bykovsky, Valentin I. Filatyev, Yuri A. Gagarin,Viktor V. Gorbatko, Anatoli Y. Kartashov, Yevgeni V. Khrunov, Vladimir M. Komarov, Aleksei A. Leonov, Grigori G. Nelyubov, Andriyan G. Nikolayev, Pavel R. Popovich, Mars Z. Rafikov, Georgi S. Shonin, Gherman S. Titov, Valentin Varlamov, Boris V. Volynov, and Dmitry A. Zaikin.

In March 1960, the newly-minted cosmonauts were ordered to report to Chkalovsky airfield northeast of Moscow, where a new training facility had hastily been set up and placed under the command of Yevgeny Karpov and General Nikolai Kamanin. Originally known simply as the Cosmonaut Training Centre, in 1968 the facility would acquire its more famous nickname of Zvezdy Gordok or “Star City”. Here, the cosmonauts settled into a gruelling training schedule involving lectures on dozens of scientific and technical topics and intense physical activities ranging from gymnastics to hockey, basketball, and and cross-country skiing. And all the while, of course, their physical condition was obsessively monitored, much to the annoyance of many. As Yevgeny Karpov recalled:

“We began with physical training. Not all the flyers understood why. Some were puzzled, even irritated. Why all the suddenly intensified setting-up exercises every morning and all the gymnastics and track-and-field work? And why so much less attention to the centrifuges, vibrostands and other special equipment?

We had to do a lot of convincing to bring them around to seeing it our way. Our prospective cosmonauts had to change many of their notions. There are some people, young flyers especially, who regard any doctor with suspicion. To them he is the fellow who is cantankerous about trifles, always looking for something to latch on to. Several of the latecomers to our group felt this way, annoyed at the medical checks before and after training, ‘More and more indicators! Endless checkups! You’d think we were a bunch of guinea pigs!’”

Eventually, more specialized activities were added to the regimen, including exposure to high g-loads in a centrifuge, instruction in radio communications and performing various tasks while wearing a spacesuit, survival training in the wilderness, weightlessness training in a specially-modified Tupolev Tu-104 aircraft flying parabolic arcs – what in the American space program is nicknamed the “Vomit Comet”- as well as parachute training. The latter was particularly vital due to the peculiar design of the Vostok spacecraft the cosmonauts would eventually fly. Unlike the American Mercury capsule, which splashed down in the ocean, for logistical and security reasons the Vostok was designed to touch down on the enormous landmass of the Soviet Union. However, as the spacecraft could not carry a parachute large enough to safely soft-land both itself and the cosmonaut inside, the cosmonaut would instead eject at an altitude of 7,000 metres and parachute to the ground separately. This was among the cosmonauts’ least-favourite part of the training, though several of the younger members – including Yuri Gagarin – had already completed the mandatory 5 jumps as part of their Air Force training.

Equally feared was the so-called “chamber of silence”, a soundproof pressurized chamber in which a single cosmonaut would be locked for days or even weeks on end to simulate the isolation of a long space voyage. But while designed to test a cosmonaut’s mental fortitude, on March 23, 1961 the chamber proved deadly when an accidental fire in the enriched-oxygen environment claimed the life of 24-year-old cosmonaut Valentin Bondarenko. The cosmonaut corps soon suffered further losses: in July 1960 Valentin Varlamov dislocated his spine while diving into a shallow river while Anatoli Kartashov was diagnosed with weal blood vessels during centrifuge training – resulting in both being dismissed from the program. These losses remained secret for decades, fuelling the enduring “phantom” or “lost cosmonaut” conspiracy theory, which holds that cosmonauts were unsuccessfully launched into space prior to 1961, but their missions – and deaths – were covered up by the Soviet authorities. But that is a subject for another video.

Meanwhile, the remaining 17 cosmonauts carried on with their training, including carrying out 3-day simulated missions in a mockup of the Vostok capsule. At first glance, all this intensive training may appear largely redundant given how little control the cosmonauts would actually have over their spacecraft. Indeed, while the cabin of the American Mercury spacecraft featured 56 switches and 76 indicator lights, that of Vostok had only 4 switches and 35 indicators – most of which relating to the re-entry process. During the flights, cosmonauts would be relegated to mere passengers, with the capsule being almost entirely controlled from the ground by radio command. At the time, it was not known what the hostile environment of space might do to the human body; doctors speculated that microgravity might prevent a cosmonaut from swallowing or digesting food, distort their eyeballs, or even scramble their minds. For this reason, only the toughest, healthiest candidates capable of withstanding a wide variety of stresses were selected to become cosmonauts. And until it could be confirmed that humans could indeed function in space, operation of the spacecraft was left to the ground controllers. Still, it was always possible that the automatic systems might fail, so the cosmonauts were trained to reorient the capsule manually for reentry. And to ensure that only a sound-minded cosmonaut could take control of the spacecraft, the controls were locked out and could only be activated by punching in a three-number code. This was sealed in an envelope placed inside the cabin, or could be transmitted to the cosmonaut over radio in an emergency.

As the training wore on and the first scheduled launches approached, one question was foremost in everyone’s mind: who would be first? Though the Soviets had selected a cosmonaut corps three times larger than the American Mercury Seven, it was not long before a small group of candidates began to stand out from the rest. Known as the Vanguard Six or Sochi Six after a famous group photograph taken at the Black Sea resort town of Sochi, the group consisted of Valery Bykovsky, Yuri Gagarin, Grigori Nelyubov, Andrian Nikolayev, Pavel Popovich, and Gherman Titov. Throughout the training, all six had demonstrated a winning combination of technical prowess, physical fitness, leadership, and political acumen. But only one could be first. To determine which one, a State Interdepartmental Board or “Credentials Committee” was convened composed of high-ranking officials from the Air Force Medical Service, the Soviet Academy of Sciences, the Cosmonaut Training Centre, the OKB-1 design bureau that designed the Vostok rocket and spacecraft, and other major organizations. The committee was tasked with selecting a suitable candidate based not only on his technical proficiency but also his political reliability and moral qualities. As part of this process, the Vanguard Six were subjected to a battery of interviews and asked to sit in a Vostok capsule mockup while being mercilessly grilled about the craft’s various systems and functions.

But while compelling arguments were made for each of the six, from the beginning it was clear that one cosmonaut stood out among the rest: Yuri Gagarin. As space journalist Yaroslav Golovanov later explained:

“Karpov valued in Nelyubov the speed of his mind, temperament and skilled command of words, although he saw a deficiency in him too; he had a not always justified tendency to superiority over everybody, and a nearly complete absence of self-criticism.

Karpov told me that at different periods of training, he gave his preference to first Popvich, then Titov. He liked Tito’s frankness very much. Gherman, if coming under question, never twisted things, never invented excuses for himself. On the other hand, Karpov was alert to Tito’s impulsiveness; if he failed, he became practically unmanageable. Korolev himself, evidently, also had some preference to Titov, but still to a large extent to Gagarin.

Leonov thinks that Gagarin pleased Korolev as early as the time of the cosmonauts’ first trip to the [OKB-1] construction bureau. Yazdovsky related that Korolev said to him one day about Gagarin: “I like that brat.””

Again and again, Gagarin demonstrated an energy and aptitude for leadership that endeared him to both his superiors and his fellow cosmonauts. For instance, on one occasion during zero-gravity training Gagarin and his comrades arrived at the airfield only to find that the crew of the training aircraft were late. While the other cosmonauts were happy to relax as they waited, Gagarin suggested they discuss the physics of the parabolic flights they were about to take. On another occasion, while waiting for the State Interdepartmental Board to show up, a restless Gagarin declared:

“Why waste time? Suppose I talk and you correct me if I’m wrong.”

He then proceeded to jump in the Vostok mockup and effortlessly rattle off all of its various systems and procedures. When the Board members finally arrived, he gladly repeated the performance. All these strengths were well-represented in his official dossier:

“Throughout the period of training for flight, Yu A. Gagarin displayed great accuracy in the performance of various experimental psychological tests. He manifested great equanimity when subjected to sudden and powerful stimuli.

His reaction to ‘novelties’ (the state of weightlessness, prolonged sessions in the isolation chamber, parachute jumps, and other procedures) were always positive; he evinced the ability quickly to orient himself in new circumstances and skill in maintaining self control in various unexpected situations.

Observations made during his confinement in the isolation chamber revealed a highly developed capacity to relax, during even the brief pauses provided for rest: to drop off to sleep quickly, and to awaken on his own at the scheduled time. Noteworthy among his character traits was his sense of humour – his good nature and fondness for joking.

His sessions in the trainer were characterized by a calm, self-confident performance, with clear, concise reports after the completion of each procedure. His self-confidence, presence of mind, curiosity and cheerfulness made for a distinct originality in the elaboration of professional skills.”

Gagarin had other, less tangible advantages as well. A handsome young man with an irrepressible smile and a strong proletarian background, he was exactly the kind of modern, virile Soviet man the Kremlin wanted to present to the world. Strangely, Gagarin’s weaknesses also played into the final decision, as General Kamanin later explained:

“Both [Gagarin and Titov] are excellent candidates, but in the last few days I hear more and more people speak out in favour of Titov and my personal confidence is growing too…The only thing that keeps me from picking him is the need to have the stronger person for the one day flight. The second flight, which will last sixteen orbits, will undoubtedly be more difficult than the first one-orbit flight. But the first flight and the name of the cosmonaut will never be forgotten by humanity, whereas the second and following ones will be as easily forgotten as new records….it’s hard to decide which of them should be sent to die, and it’s equally hard to decide which of these two decent men should be made world-famous.”

The same logic would come into play two years later when 26-year-old textile worker Valentina Tereshkova was selected to be the first woman in space. Not only was Tereshkova young, single, attractive, and the daughter of a collective farm worker and war hero, but she was less physically and technically qualified than her fellow women cosmonaut trainees. She was thus selected for the largely passive “spam-in-a-can” Vostok 6 mission while her more skilled fellow trainees were reserved for later, more technically complex missions – missions that, in the end, were never flown.

By late March 1961, the time had come to make a final decision. The Americans had announced their intention to attempt a manned launch on April 29, while the successful single-orbit mission of the unmanned Korabl-Sputnik 4 – had demonstrated the safety and reliability of the Vostok spacecraft. The Central Committee of the Communist Party thus decreed that a cosmonaut would be launched no later than April 20, and on April 5 General Kamanin and the Vanguard Six flew to the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan to supervise preparations for the Vostok 1 mission.

In the end, the decision of who would be first into space was left to the cosmonauts themselves. As with the American Mercury Seven, Kamanin asked the cosmonauts to write down who they thought should fly first if they themselves were not selected. Almost to a man, the cosmonauts recommended Gagarin, calling him “a fit comrade” who “never loses heart”, “bold and steadfast”, “modest and simple”, and “decisive.” Among the few exceptions was Mars Rafikov, who wrote:

“I should be sent, although I know that they will not send me. But my first name is ‘cosmic’ and this would sound good.”

On April 9, 1961, the final decision was made: Yuri Gagarin would be first, with Gherman Titov as primary backup pilot and Grigori Nelyubov as secondary backup. The next day, the cosmonauts were informed in private. However, the Kremlin, eager to preserve this historic moment, insisted on recreating the announcement for the cameras, forcing Titov and the other cosmonauts to relive their disappointment a second time.

Gagarin, who had just welcomed his second daughter Galina into the world, was overwhelmed and humbled by the announcement, later recalling:

“What did I feel at that session of the commission standing beside my friend and backup? Everything was clear and yet unclear – maybe even very complex. I was thinking of Gherman. He’s a very good flier. He’s an intelligent man and a wonderful friend. He should make the flight too. I felt rather awkward. Why me? Why not him? Of course the commission’s decision explained everything. But it would have been better to make the flight together.”

Meanwhile, Titov attempted to conceal his disappointment:

“Why Gagarin and myself were chosen? It is difficult to say. The commanders chose us. But all six of us were equally well-trained, and each could pilot the Vostok spacecraft. It was Gagarin’s character that mattered most. You have to understand me correctly: the first man in space had to be a nice, attractive person.”

[We were] told [it would be Gagarin] on the 9th of April, and journalists say I was so glad for Yuri that I almost went to kiss him. I was disappointed , because I also counted that I would be the first man in space. But as the decision had been made, what was there to do?”

The historic day finally came on Wednesday, April 12, 1961. After being woken at 5:30 AM, Gagarin and Titov ate a light breakfast of pureed meat and chocolate sauce squeezed from a tube – the same food they would be consuming in space – before being helped into their spacesuit. In a taste of what was to come, Gagarin recalled that:

“The people helping me get into my space suit held out pieces of paper; one even held out his work pass, asking for an autograph. I couldn’t refuse and signed several times.”

At the last minute, someone expressed concern that the returning cosmonaut would be mistaken for a downed American U-2 spy plane pilot. A pot of red paint was duly fetched, and the letters “USSR” hastily applied to Gagarin’s helmet. Then, after a brief visit with Chief Designer Sergei Korolev, Gagarin and Titov climbed aboard the specially-modified blue-and-white transfer bus, plugged their spacesuits into the built-in cooling system, and headed off for the launch pad. According to legend, along the way Gagarin asked the bus driver to stop so he could relieve himself outside. To this day, every cosmonaut launched from Baikonur recreates this incident by urinating on the left rear tire of the transfer bus for good luck. However, archival footage of the drive does not show the bus making any stops, casting doubt on this famous story.

At 6:50 AM, Gagarin arrived at the launch pad, where he shook hands with Chairman of the State Commission Konstantin Rudnev and bid farewell to his comrades. As cosmonaut Andriyan Nikolayev later recalled:

“I was so nervous that I forgot he was wearing a helmet and tried to kiss him. I knocked my forehead against it so hard I even had a bump there. ‘One for all and all for one, lads!’ shouted Yura to us and set off for the launching pad.”

Gagarin climbed the stairs to the elevator which whisked him to the top of the rocket, where pad leader Oleg Ivanovsky strapped him into his ejection seat and sealed the spacecraft cabin. Just before closing the hatch, he revealed to Gagarin the lockout code for the controls: 1-2-5.

The remaining preparations for launch proceeded without incident until, at 9:07 AM Moscow Time, the launch command was given. Unlike NASA, the Soviet – and later Russian – space program did not go in for countdowns – a tradition originating with German rocket engineers like Wernher von Braun – and simply launched their rockets at the appointed time. As the Vostok rocket blasted off the launch pad, an exuberant Yuri Gagarin cried out:

“Poyekhali! [Let’s go!] Goodbye until we meet soon dear friends.”

11 minutes later, Vostok 1 separated from its booster and entered a stable 181 kilometre orbit. Gagarin, now the first human in history to enter outer space, looked out through the spacecraft’s porthole and declared:

“I see the earth! I see the clouds! It’s beautiful; what beauty!”

With Gagarin now safely in orbit, at 9:59 AM Moscow Time the state news media announced the mission’s success across the country. The effect on the Soviet people was electric, as Time Magazine later reported:

“From Leningrad to Petropavlovsk, the USSR came to a halt. Streetcars and buses stopped so that passengers could listen to loudspeakers in public squares. Factory workers shut off their machines; shopgirls quit their counters. Schoolkids turned eagerly from the day’s lessons. Somewhere above then, a Soviet citizen what arcing past the stars, whirling about the earth at 18,000 miles an hour, soaring into history as the first man in space.”

During his brief single orbit, Gagarin reported on the status of his craft and tried out the space food he had been given. He did not become nauseated or disoriented, proving that humans could work effectively in zero gravity. But only an hour and twenty minutes after launch, it was already time to return home. As Vostok 1 passed over Angola, the automatic solar sensors realigned the capsule and fired its retrorockets, slowing the craft and sending it plunging into the atmosphere. It was then that the only major hiccup of the entire mission occurred. The Vostok spacecraft was composed of two main sections: a spherical descent module containing the cosmonaut, his ejection seat, and parachutes; and the biconical instrument module containing oxygen, batteries, the reentry retrorocket and its fuel. The two were supposed to separate cleanly following retrofire, allowing the descent module – covered in heat-resistant tiles – to reenter the atmosphere. However, a thick bundle of cables failed to separate, and the two modules, still connected, whirled violently around each other until the heat of reentry finally burned through the cables. Thankfully, Gagarin was unhurt – though he experienced accelerations of up to 10G – and the rest of reentry went as planned. At an altitude of 7 kilometres, the spacecraft’s parachute deployed, and the hatch blew off. Two seconds later, the ejection seat launched Gagarin free of the capsule. Interestingly, the Soviets would keep this detail of the flight secret for many years, as the rules of the Fédération Aéronautique International or FAI concerning spaceflight records stipulated that the astronaut must return inside their spacecraft. In the event, however, the FAI later amended its rules and still acknowledges Yuri Gagarin as the first man to travel into outer space – and to learn more about how this cosmic boundary is defined, please check out our previous video The Surprisingly Interesting debate of Where Outer Space Actually Begins.

At 11:05 AM Moscow Time – two hours after blasting off from Baikonur – Yuri Gagarin landed on the edge of a collective farm called the Road of Lenin near the village of Smelova, Saratov Oblast – not far from where he had first started flying in 1954. As Gagarin later recalled:

“As I stepped down on firm ground, I saw a woman and a little girl and a spotted calf watching me curiously. I started walking towards them, and they moved towards me. But as I came closer, they slowed down. I was still wearing my bright orange space suit, which looked unusual and was making them feel uneasy. They hadn’t seen anything like it before. I took off my helmet and cried out, feeling the chill of excitement.

“Don’t be afraid, comrades. I’m no intruder.”

“Are you from space?” The woman asked uncertainly.

“You won’t believe it,” I said.

Then I saw a group of harvester operators running towards me and crying my name. They were the first people I saw on earth during my mission in space. We embraced and kissed one another.”

Not long after, recovery helicopters arrived at the landing site and airlifted Gagarin to the nearby air force base at Engels, where Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev called to congratulate him on his successful mission. Two days later, the world’s first space traveller appeared in Moscow’s Red Square before a jubilant crowd of tens of thousands. As the Los Angeles Times reported:

“Weeping with emotion, Premier Khrushchev brought spaceman Yuri Gagarin home to Moscow Friday and the city’s millions hailed the astronaut as the space age Columbus in a roaring welcome no Stalin or Czar ever received…Foreign observers presumed that never in the 805-year-old tumultuous history of Moscow has there ever been such an outpouring of public affection.”

For his achievement, Gagarin was promoted to Major and received the highest honours the Soviet state could bestow: the Order of Lenin and the title Hero of the Soviet Union. Overnight, he became the most famous and celebrated person in the world, and over the following two years toured all across the Soviet Union and visited more than 30 different countries. He had lunch with Queen Elizabeth II of England, was given golden keys to the gates of Cairo and Alexandria by Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser, and incessantly hugged by Cuban leader Fidel Castro. His smiling face was plastered over billboards, posters, and postcards around the world, and streets, institutions, and even his adopted town of Gzhatsk were renamed in his honour. This sudden celebrity was overwhelming for the modest and self-effacing Gagarin, who stated:

“I was far from alone in this achievement. There were tens of thousands of scientists, specialists, and workers who participated in preparing for this flight. I feel awkward because I am being made out to be some sort of super-ideal person. In fact, like everyone else I’ve made a lot of mistakes and have my weaknesses too. It’s embarrassing to be made tossed like such a good, sweet little boy. It is enough to make one sick.”

Indeed, in spite of his sudden elevation to near-sainthood, Gagarin was very much a man with very human weaknesses – especially a weakness for women. Suddenly presented with a world full of women eager to share his bed, Gagarin found it difficult to contain himself – as did his fellow cosmonauts. This philandering and other bad behaviour got so bad so quickly that in late 1961 Gagarin and Titov – who had recently carried out his own day-long Vostok 2 mission on August 6 – were hauled into a closed-door hearing before the upper echelons of the Communist Party. However, this official dressing-down had little effect, and the two men continued to get themselves into embarrassing predicaments. For Gagarin, things came to a head in October 1961 while vacationing with his family at a sanatorium in Foron on the Black Sea. Taking an interest in one of the facility’s nurses, Gagarin followed her into her quarters. Growing suspicious of her husband’s extended absence, Valentina Gagarin set off in search of him and began banging on the door. Gagarin, still drunk, tried to jump out the window, but caught his foot on some ornamental vines and fell face-first into an asphalt pathway. As Dr. Vladimir Golyakhovsky later recounted:

“The story was kept under tight wraps. Gagarin was taken to the exclusive hospital #6 set up by the Third Department of the Ministry of Public Health for the cosmonauts, and there the wound was treated. The outer table of the frontal bone was found to be fractured and bent inward; the wound was contaminated. The surgeons feared that the infection had extended to the front sinus.”

Gagarin was supposed to be the honoured guest at the 22nd Communist Party Congress on October 17, but the so-called “Foron Incident” prevented him from making all but a brief appearance. It also left him with a large scar over his left eye. Though his immense fame would easily have allowed it, he refused to seek out plastic surgery in the west as this would have brought further embarrassment upon the Soviet government. To the end of his days, Gagarin maintained either that he had hit his head on a rock while playing with his daughter or that he had been playing hide-and-seek with his wife and was unaware there was another woman in the room. Sure, Yuri…

The effects of global fame on Gagarin’s personality and public image did not go unnoticed by General Kamanin, who later wrote:

“There were many situations when Gagarin miraculously escaped big troubles. These situations often occurred when he attended parties, drove in cars or boats, or when hunting with the big bosses…. The active life style, endless meetings and drinking sessions were noticeably changing Yura’s image and slowly, but steadily erasing his charming smile from his face.”

But as embarrassing as Gagarin’s escapades might have been, those of his fellow cosmonauts were often worse. Titov in particular had a habit of driving drunk, and was involved in three serious collisions between August 1961 and February 1962. On June 26, 1964 he would be involved in yet another drunken crash which resulted in the death of his female passenger – a crash which he subsequently fled and lied to the police about. And on March 12, 1962, cosmonauts Mars Rafikov, Ivan Anikeyev, and Grigory Nelyubov were returning to Star City after a booze-soaked night on the town when they failed to produce appropriate identification at a checkpoint and got into a drunken altercation with the duty officer. While General Kamanin offered to let the men off with a reprimand if they apologized for their behaviour, Nelyubov refused, and all three were expelled from the cosmonaut program. Rafikov and Anikeyev returned to the air force and enjoyed long and successful careers, but the rejection hit the vain and arrogant Nelyubov hard and he sank into depression and alcoholism, ultimately committing suicide on February 18, 1966.

Yet in spite of his personal weaknesses, Yuri Gagarin still tried to use his fame to serve the greater good. Every day he received hundreds of pieces of fan mail from around the world – so many, in fact, that he was soon given his own staff and Moscow postal code to handle it all. Many of these letters were from struggling Soviet citizens begging for money or other assistance, and while there were limits to Gagarin’s influence, he did all he could to resolve as many cases as possible. And when Sergei Kiselov, one of Gagarin’s parachuting instructors, broke his neck during a jump, Gagarin used his clout to have him transferred to a private Moscow hospital reserved for the Communist part elite. Thanks to this intervention, Kiselov made a full recovery and was saved from a lifetime of paralysis.

But as the global hype began to die down and his public tour schedule relaxed, Gagarin’s thoughts turned back to the work he loved the most: flying. To his horror, however, he discovered that the Soviet government had grounded him, banning him from flying even conventional aircraft. So valuable was Gagarin as a national symbol and propaganda tool that the government could not afford to risk his life again. Even General Kamanin balked at this pronouncement, writing:

“We can’t turn Gagarin into a museum exhibition – that would kill him.”

But these protests fell on deaf ears. Instead, Gagarin was promoted to Colonel, appointed deputy chief of the Cosmonaut Training Centre in Star City, and appointed to the Supreme Soviet. Gagarin grudgingly accepted his new earthbound responsibilities, acting as primary Capsule Communicator or CapCom for the dual Vostok 3 and 4 mission in August 1963 and heading up the training program for the newly-selected female cosmonauts including Valentina Tereshkova, who made her first – and only – spaceflight aboard Vostok 6 on June 16, 1963. All the while, he continued to submit requests to return to flight status to General Kamanin, who continued to set them aside. Finally, in 1967 Kamanin relented and appointed Gagarin as backup pilot for Vladimir Komarov on the first flight of the new Soyuz spacecraft.

The development of the Soyuz was notoriously troubled, with engineers reporting 203 serious flaws with the design. These complaints, however, were ignored due to pressure by the government to fly the mission on the anniversary of Vladimir Lenin’s birthday, and planning for the mission pushed ahead. Gagarin, fearful that his good friend was being sent on a suicide mission, pulled rank in an attempt to bump Komarov from the flight, knowing that the government would never risk the life of a national hero. Komarov, however, insisted on flying the mission, which was launched on April 23, 1967. As feared, the flight was a disaster, with Komarov experiencing an endless string of technical failures including the failure of one of the spacecraft’s solar panels to deploy. Following reentry, the parachutes also failed to deploy and the capsule slammed into the ground at 140 kilometres per hour, killing Komarov instantly. It was the first time in history an astronaut had been killed while flying a space mission – and for more on the Soyuz 1 disaster, please check out our previous video The Most Disastrous Space Mission Ever Executed.

Following Komarov’s death, Gagarin was officially grounded once again. Undeterred, he continued to request permission to at least fly jets, all while carrying out his official duties and pursuing studies in technical sciences at the Zhukovsky Air Force Engineering Academy. On February 17, 1968 Gagarin defended his thesis on winged spaceplanes. Diploma in hand, he appealed once more to the Air Force to be allowed to fly jets, stating:

“If I stop flying I will have no moral right to lead other people whose life and work are connected with flying.”

This time, his request was granted, and his grounding order was rescinded once more. By this time years of inactivity and luxurious meals had taken their toll: Gagarin’s boyish face had filled out, and his once-athletic body had become soft and grown a gut. He thus began an intense regimen of physical training, hoping to one day qualify for another spaceflight.

Gagarin’s flight training took place at Chkalov Air Force Base northeast of Moscow under experienced test pilot and instructor Colonel Vladimir Seryogin. Between March 13 and 22, 1968, Gagarin completed 18 flights in the MiG-15 UTI 2-seat subsonic jet trainer, accumulating 7 hours of flight time. His final tandem flight before he was allowed to solo was scheduled for March 27. Work and travel commitments had prevented Gagarin from flying for several days, and he was eager to get back into the air. However, the day got off to an inauspicious start. The weather was cold and windy, with waist-deep snow smothering the ground and thick cloud cover overhead. Even worse, Gagarin’s car broke down, forcing him to take a bus to the airbase. And when he finally arrived, he discovered he had forgotten his gate pass and had to return home to fetch it. Gagarin’s superstitious colleagues chided him on having a bad-luck day and warned him not to fly, but Gagarin ignored them and at 10:19 AM he and Seryogin roared off the runway and climbed into the overcast sky.

The flight plan called for Gagarin to fly the aircraft to a training area northeast of the airbase where he would practice various flight maneuvers including barrel rolls and vertical loops – a task that was expected to take no more than 20 minutes. However, at 10:37 – barely 8 minutes after taking off, Gagarin announced that his mission was complete and requested permission to return to Chkalov. Permission was granted, but soon after all radio contact was lost with the aircraft. Air traffic controllers waited with growing dread for Gagarin to re-establish contact, but when it became clear that his aircraft had exceeded its fuel endurance and likely gone down, a flight of six helicopters was dispatched to find it. It was nearly three hours before search crews finally spotted a smoking, six-metre wide crater in a birch forest 11 kilometres outside the village of Kirzhach. Rescue crews quickly descended upon the site, but there was nothing they could do. The aircraft had disintegrated on impact, scattering debris over a wide area. It was only when one searcher discovered Gagarin’s wallet and identity card that the terrible truth was confirmed. Yuri Gagarin, the first man in space, Hero of the Soviet Union, and global icon, was dead at the age of just 34.

The following day, Gagarin and Seryogin’s few surviving remains were cremated and, in a solemn ceremony, interred within the Kremlin Wall Necropolis. Immediately, a government commission headed by Air Force Colonel Igor Kuznetsov, was assembled to investigate the fatal crash. But while the inquiry involved hundreds of investigators and succeeded in recovering 90% of the aircraft’s wreckage, Soviet premier Leonid Brezhnev refused to allow the final report to be released, fearing its conclusions would “unsettle the nation.” Only a brief summary was published. In the absence of official information, all manner of rumours and theories emerged regarding the causes of the crash. Some held that Gagarin and Seryogin had collided with a bird or a weather balloon, while others claimed that Gagarin was drunk during the flight, downing an entire bottle of vodka before takeoff. Far stranger theories posited that the pilots had attempted to shoot at a moose on the ground and had accidentally collided with a tree, that they had encountered an alien spacecraft that zapped them with mind-paralyzing rays, or that Gagarin had faked his own death and was living in the United States – no, really. On the more sinister side, some speculated that Gagarin had been secretly murdered by the KGB. This theory was based on the fact that Gagarin – and the Soviet space program as a whole – had largely been the pet project of Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev. After deposing Khrushchev in a coup in 1964, new Premier Leonid Brezhnev, the theory went, was eager to wipe out all remaining traces of his predecessor’s successes – including Gagarin.

A more plausible theory was put forward by lead government investigator Igor Kuznetsov, who revealed that at the time of the crash, Vladimir Seryogin was not in good health, often complaining of nausea and heart pains. According to Nuznetsov’s theory, during the flight Seryogin suffered some sort of health emergency – possibly a heart attack – and fell limp onto the controls, partially disabling them. Gagarin, in the forward seat of the aircraft, did not notice Seryogin’s condition until it was too late, eventually losing control of the aircraft and ploughing into the ground.

However, the official Government report, finally declassified in 2011, paints a different picture. Based on the angle at which the aircraft impacted the ground, investigators concluded that Gagarin and Seryogin had entered a flat spin. Furthermore, the pattern of fractures in Gagarin’s hand – which was found still clutching the throttle – revealed that he had not tried to eject and had tried to regain control of the aircraft until the very last second. As for what caused the fatal spin, the report speculates that Gagarin and Seryogin may have banked sharply to avoid a weather balloon or flown into the wake of another, faster aircraft. As a 1989 Novosti News Agency article, based on the published summary of the report, explains:

“The pilot’s maneuver to prevent dive and spin while levelling off – the downward deflection of the aileron on a dropping wing to prevent the aircraft from going down in a spin – led to wing stall and spin. The entire accident happened in a moment.”

Either Gagarin’s MiG-15 fell into the vortex wake of another aircraft or else it banked sharply to avoid hitting another aircraft or a weather balloon. The aircraft went into a spin characterized by maximal energy loss. Subsequently it recovered from the spin after which the aircraft ploughed into the ground.”

Indeed, forensic analysis of Gagarin’s remains revealed no alcohol in his system, ruling out the possibility that he had been drunk during the flight. As for the accusations that the KGB murdered Gagarin at the behest of Brezhnev, the KGB actually conducted its own, independent investigation of the crash in 1968 which uncovered additional, tantalizing details. The KGB report, declassified in 2003, revealed that Gagarin and Seryogin’s MiG-15 UTI training aircraft had been fitted with slip-on wing-mounted fuel tanks, which greatly extended its range and endurance but were known to make the aircraft unstable in poor weather conditions. More importantly, however, investigators discovered that the two pilots had been given outdated weather information. Prior to takeoff the cloud ceiling was 820 metres, but by the time of the crash the weather had severely deteriorated and this had dropped to only 300 metres. Thus, when the jet entered a spin, Gagarin and Seryogin tried to recover instead of ejecting, believing they had significantly more altitude than they actually did.

16 years after the crash, yet another investigation was launched by Lt. General Sergei Mikhailovich Belotserkovsky, who had lectured Gagarin on engineering and scientific training at the Zhukovsky Air Force Engineering Academy. Belotserkovsky’s investigation discovered that another MiG-15 had taken off immediately before Gagarin and Seryogin and that a pair of more powerful MiG-21 fighters had taken off two minutes after. The timing and proximity of these takeoffs violated safety protocols, and either of these aircraft could have generated wakes powerful enough to throw the already unstable MiG-15 UTI into a fatal flat spin.

This conclusion is shared by cosmonaut Alexei Leonov – the first man to perform an Extravehicular Activity or “Space Walk” – though he believes another aircraft was to blame. At the time of the crash, Leonov was at nearby Kirzhach airfield, leading parachute exercises with a group of younger cosmonaut trainees:

“The weather was very bad that day. The cloud cover was low and it was raining hard. My team had performed just one jump when the weather deteriorated even further. The rain turned to sleet and conditions were so bad that I canceled the session and requested permission to return to base.”

On returning to base, Leonov heard two loud explosions in the distance. Three hours later, search crews discovered the crash site and the remains of Gagarin and Seryogin. As Leonov writes in his autobiography Two Sides of the Moon:

“At the time of the accident, it was known that a new supersonic Sukhoi Su-15 jet was in the same area as Yuri’s MiG. Three people who lived near the crash site confirmed seeing such a plane shortly before the accident. According to the flight schedule of that day, the Sukhoi was prohibited from flying lower than 10,000 metres. I believe now, and believed at the time that the accident happened when the jet pilot violated the rules and dipped below the cloud cover for orientation. I believe that, without realizing it because of the terrible weather conditions, he passed within 10 or 20 metres of Yuri and Seryogin’s plane while breaking the sound barrier. The air turbulence created overturned their jet and sent it into the fatal flat spin.”

According to Leonov, the first of the two explosions he heard that day was the Su-15 breaking the sound barrier, while the second was Gagarin and Seryogin’s MiG-15 UTI impacting the ground. But while Leonov claims to know the identity of the Su-15 pilot, he has refused to divulge it, stating:

“He is a good test pilot… It will fix nothing.”

While the aircraft wake and flat spin theory has gained widespread acceptance, other possibilities have also been suggested. In 2007, Igor Kuznetsov petitioned the government of Vladimir Putin to launch yet another investigation into Gagarin’s fatal crash, centred on an unusual design quirk of his aircraft. Kuznetsov theorized that a set of cockpit vent panels may have accidentally been left open by ground crews, allowing the cockpit to slowly depressurize. While such panels were not included on Russian-manufactured MiG-15s, they were present on Gagarin and Seryogin’s aircraft, which was manufactured in Czechoslovakia. According to Kuznetsov, the pilots – who were not wearing oxygen masks – would only have noticed the reduced cabin pressure at an altitude of 4,000 metres, slowly losing consciousness as they began to suffer from hypoxia. They then attempted to rapidly reduce their altitude to 2,000 but descended too quickly, causing them to pass out and spiral into the ground.

But while intriguing, this theory has been disputed by many pilots including cosmonaut Vladimir Aksyonov, who argued that not only would experienced pilots like Gagarin and Seryogin not have panicked in such a situation, but that a rapid descent from 4,000 metres was a fairly standard procedure for even unpressurized aircraft and would have had few negative physiological effects on the crew. According to Aksyonov, the most likely cause of the crash were the severe weather conditions on that day, which would have made it easy for Gagarin and Seryogin to become disoriented:

“The cloudiness that day was unusual: the bottom edge of the nearly solid clouds was about 600 meters above the ground. Then, up to a height of 4 thousand meters, the clouds were dense, with small rarefaction. No clouds above the top edge: clear sky and very good visibility. We were even shown photographs of the top edge taken from a meteorological plane.”

Given the paucity of evidence, we may never know for sure what really happened. What is clear, however, is that Gagarin and Seryogin were almost certainly not responsible for the crash. Whether they flew into another aircraft’s wake, became disoriented in the clouds, passed out from hypoxia, or were attacked by aliens, the two pilots performed their duties exactly as they had been trained and were merely the victims of incredibly bad luck.

What is also clear is that on that fateful day, the world of space exploration lost one of its leading lights. Though he often downplayed his own significance, Yuri Alekseievich Gagarin was well and truly a hero – a humble, good-natured, yet flawed farm boy who nonetheless had the courage to leap into the unknown and blaze a path for humanity into the stars. As his superior and close friend Nikolai Kamanin lamented:

It was impossible to imagine Gagarin dead. Gagarin was life himself, the unbound dream of the sky, of flying, of space.”

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