Yuri Gagarin was the first human in space when he orbited Earth in 1961 aboard the Vostok 1 space capsule. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.

If there’s ever a clearer illustration of the critics against Theodore Roosevelt’s “man in the arena,” it’s Soviet space pioneer Yuri Gagarin and the naysayers who believe he wasn’t ...

A Soviet spacecraft is expected to come hurtling back to Earth after being stuck in orbit for more than 50 years. The Kosmos ...

The cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin went down in history as the first human ever to enter space. From humble beginnings he would attain the rank of senior lieutenant fighter as a pilot in the Soviet Air ...

It has been 30 years since his friend and fellow cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin died in a MiG crash, and Leonov still can’t reconcile the loss. “We were all fighter pilots. Every fighter pilot has ...

Why is Christian Science in our name? Our name is about honesty. The Monitor is owned by The Christian Science Church, and we’ve always been transparent about that. The Church publishes the ...

It was 50 years ago that man first ventured into space. On April 12, 1961, Soviet Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin orbited the Earth in Vostok 1 (Vostok 3KA-3) on a flight lasting 108 minutes and became the ...

The General Assembly, in its resolution A/RES/65/271 of 7 April 2011, declared 12 April as the International Day of Human Space Flight “to celebrate each year at the international level the ...

But Yuri Gagarin remained calm in the capsule atop the rocket. After months of rigorous physical and technical training, the 27-year-old cosmonaut had been chosen for the historic flight in part ...