AKA Yuri Alexeyevich Gagarin
Birthplace: Klushino, Smolensk, Russia
Location of death: Moscow, Russia
Cause of death: Accident - Airplane
Remains: Buried, Kremlin, Moscow, Russia
Race or Ethnicity: White
Sexual orientation: Straight
Executive summary: First person to orbit earth
Military service: Soviet Air Force
As the first man to escape Earth's gravitation field and achieve orbit, Yuri Gagarin holds the title of first human being in space. On 12 April 1961 in his craft Vostok 1, Gagarin completed a single orbit of the Earth. Performed at an altitude of 187 3/4 miles (302 kilometers), the orbital rotation took 108 minutes at 18,000 miles an hour. For this he was nominated a Hero of the Soviet Union.
Gagarin trained to return to space in the Soyuz program but died on 27 March 1968 when his MiG-15 crashed during a routine training flight. Gagarin's ashes were buried beside other Soviet heroes in the Kremlin Wall and a lunar crater was named after him. He was further immortalized in 1971 when a plaque bearing his name (and those of 14 other fallen heroes of space flight) was placed on the Moon by the crew of Apollo 15. The international celebration Yuri's Night is observed to commemorate the first human in space and the first space shuttle launch.
Wife: Valentina Ivanovna Goryacheva (m. 1957)
Order of Lenin
Asteroid Namesake 1771 Gagarin
Lunar Crater Gagarin (20.2° S, 149.2° E, 265 km diameter)
FILMOGRAPHY AS ACTOR
From the Earth to the Moon (5-Apr-1998) · Himself
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