First Man in Space

First Man in Space: Yuri Gagarin 50th Year Anniversary: April 12th 1961 - April 12th 2011.

First Man in Space: Yuri Gagarin 50th Year Anniversary: April 12th 1961 - April 12th 2011.

First Man in Space: Yuri Gagarin 50th Year Anniversary: April 12th 1961 - April 12th 2011.

First Man in Space: Yuri Gagarin 50th Year Anniversary: April 12th 1961 - April 12th 2011.

First Man in Space: Yuri Gagarin 50th Year Anniversary: April 12th 1961 - April 12th 2011.

Today we pay tribute to Yuri Gagarin, the founding father of the Space Age race. Believe it or not but April 12th 2011 will mark the 50th anniversary of the first manned space flight by Yuri Gagarin. On April 12, 1961, Yuri Gagarin (above right and below) became the first man to orbit the Earth. His Vostok 1 command capsule was 10,417 pounds and his flight lasted 108 minutes. At this time, the United States was in the final stage of preparing for its first manned suborbital flight, on May 5, 1961. The physical hazards of weightlessness were then almost wholly unknown, so this was a very daring adventure.

April 12 was already a huge day in space history twenty years before the launch of the first shuttle mission. On that day in 1961, Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin (left, on the way to the launch pad) became the first human in space, making a 108-minute orbital flight in his Vostok 1 spacecraft. Newspapers like The Huntsville Times (right) trumpeted Gagarin's accomplishment.

Mercury astronaut Alan Shepard became the first American in space less than a month later.

Scientific cooperation with the Soviet Union dates back to the very beginnings of space flight. The first cooperative human space flight project between the United States and the Soviet Union took place in 1975. The Apollo-Soyuz Test Project was designed to test the compatibility of rendezvous and docking systems for American and Soviet spacecraft and to open the way for future joint manned flights.

Since 1993, the U.S. and Russia have worked together on a number of other space flight projects. The Space Shuttle began visiting the Russian Mir space station in 1994, and in 1995 Norm Thagard became the first U.S. astronaut to take up residency on Mir. Seven U.S. astronauts served with their Russian counterparts aboard the orbiting Mir laboratory from 1995 to 1998. The experience gained from the Mir cooperative effort, as well as lessons learned, paved the way for the International Space Station.

In-orbit construction on the Station began in November 1998, and it has been staffed non-stop with international crews since November 2000. The first Station crew, made up of U.S. commander Bill Shepherd and cosmonauts Yuri Gidzenko and Sergei Krikalev, was launched on board a Russian Soyuz spacecraft. The crew returned to Earth on the Space Shuttle Discovery in March 2001.

Happy Anniversary Yuri, you will always be remembered.