Filo.explica│How was the first trip to space?

Yuri Gagarin was born in 1934 in the village of Klúshino, in a town that years later would be baptized with his name. At the age of 21 he entered the First Superior School of Pilots of the Air Force. Two years later he had already accumulated 166 hours and 47 minutes of flight time, so he was promoted to lieutenant in the Soviet Air Force. In November 1959 he was promoted to first lieutenant. In the last days of the year he was interviewed by a medical commission for a space program. The so-called “space race” was one of the most shocking axes of the Cold War. Both the United States and the Soviet Union sought to conquer space beyond Earth to demonstrate their technological might. The man who was going to make history was Yuri Gagarin, who when he was chosen to travel on the first ship manned by a human being did not know the dangers he assumed. Yuri, somehow, was being a guinea pig. In fact, questions were raised that could not be answered before sending him into space: could a human being survive in space? And if he did, could he go back? When it came time to launch the Vostok 1 spacecraft into space, few people trusted the safety of the rockets and their communication systems. It was a huge risk. In fact, fifty years after launch, the engineer in charge, Boris Chertok, said, “If the Vostok spacecraft were presented to today’s scientists, no one would vote in favor of launching such an improvised thing into space.” The Vostok program made its first launch in May 1960, less than a year before Gagarin’s mission. On board the ship was a mannequin which they named Ivan Ivanovich.Finally, the ship was launched. It was April 12, 1961. It carried a two-meter-diameter sphere-shaped capsule that was released beyond the atmosphere. Inside was Yuri Gagarin. Yuri Gagarin became a celebrity, and a hero. For the Soviet Union he was the man who scored a huge victory in the space race. To the world, he was a superman. He was sent on tour to every continent, and in every place he was received as a star. That was the beginning of a dark era: he stopped having a private life, he couldn’t go anywhere without being approached by fans who wanted to hug him, touch him, chat with him. His intention was to fly back beyond the limits of the planet, but the Soviet Union did not allow him to do so. A national hero should not take new risks. He devoted himself to training other cosmonauts and enrolled as an engineer. After Gagarin’s death, the space race continued. In January 1969, the Soviet Union achieved the first exchange of crew in orbit from one ship to another. In July of that year, the United States reached the Moon. In 1970, the Soviets were the first to send data back to Earth from the surface of another planet, in this case Venus. In ’71, the United States was the first country to get a satellite to orbit on another planet. He did it on Mars. Thus, until the definitive dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, every year there was some fact of relevance, but it could be said that the space race was a tie decreed in 1975. It has been 61 years since Yuri Gagarin’s milestone. 61 years since a 27-year-old boy 57 centimeters tall flew, he spent 108 minutes in space, in an extremely small capsule. Since then, many places in the former Soviet Union remember him with statues, murals and monuments. 

Original source in Spanish