Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin (March 9, 1934 – March 2, 1968) is a Soviet pilot and cosmonaut who becomes the first human to journey into outer space.

Traveling in the Vostok 1 capsule, Gagarin completes one orbit of Earth on April 12, 1961.

By achieving this major milestone in the Space Race he becomes an international celebrity, and is awarded many medals and titles, including Hero of the Soviet Union, his nation's highest honor.

Gagarin is born in the Russian village of Klushino, and in his youth had been a foundryman at a steel plant in Lyubertsy.

He later joins the Soviet Air Forces as a pilot and is stationed at the Luostari Air Base, near the Norwegian border, before his selection for the Soviet space program  with five other cosmonauts.

Following his spaceflight, Gagarin becomes deputy training director of the Cosmonaut Training Centrer, which will later be named after him.

He is also elected as a deputy of the Soviet of the Union in 1962 and then to the Soviet of Nationalities, respectively the lower and upper chambers of the Supreme Soviet.

Vostok 1 is Gagarin's only spaceflight, but he serves as the backup crew to the Soyuz 1 mission, which ends in a fatal crash, killing his friend and fellow cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov.

Fearful that a national hero might be killed, Soviet officials ban Gagarin from further spaceflights.

After completing training at the Zhukovsky Air Force Engineering Academy in February 1968, he is allowed to fly regular aircraft.

Gagarin dies five weeks later when the MiG-15 training jet he is piloting with flight instructor Vladimir Seryogin crashes near the town of Kirzhach.