First Man in space:
First Man in Space: A 50-Year-Old Feat Remembered
50 years ago, Gagarin, first man in space, also answered a weighty question for rocket science
By VLADIMIR ISACHENKOV Associated Press
STAR CITY, Russia April 10, 2011 (AP)
It was the Soviet Union's own giant leap for mankind, one that would spur a humiliated America to race for the moon. It happened 50 years ago this Tuesday, when an air force pilot named Yuri Gagarin became the first human in space.
In this July 15, 1961 picture, cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, stands in an open car outside the... Expand
The 27-year-old cosmonaut's mission lasted just 108 minutes and was fraught with drama: a break in data transmission, glitches involving antennas, a retrorocket and the separation of modules. And there was an overarching question that science had yet to answer: What would weightlessness do to a human being?
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