Who was the first person to fly into space?

Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin (1934-1968), a Soviet Air Force pilot, became the first human to travel into space on 12 April 1961. He flew aboard the spacecraft Vostok 1, launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome (now in Kazakhstan), and completed one orbit of the Earth in about 108 minutes.

About the flight:

• Vostok 1 reached a maximum height of about 327 km above the Earth.
• The spacecraft was controlled automatically from the ground; Gagarin could take control only in an emergency.
• As the rocket lifted off, he said "Poyekhali!" ("Let's go!"), which became famous.
• During re-entry, he ejected from the capsule at a height of about 7 km and landed separately by parachute near the Volga river.

The flight made Gagarin a worldwide hero and gave the Soviet Union a major victory in the Space Race with the USA. 12 April is celebrated as the International Day of Human Space Flight (declared by the UN in 2011) and as Cosmonautics Day in Russia. Gagarin died in 1968 when his MiG-15 jet crashed during a training flight.

Other human spaceflight "firsts":

• Alan Shepard (USA): first American in space, 5 May 1961 (a sub-orbital flight).
• John Glenn (USA): first American to orbit the Earth (1962).
• Valentina Tereshkova (USSR): first woman in space, 16 June 1963, aboard Vostok 6.
• Alexei Leonov (USSR): first spacewalk (1965).
• Neil Armstrong (USA): first person to walk on the Moon, 20 July 1969 (Apollo 11).
• Rakesh Sharma: first Indian in space, 3 April 1984, aboard the Soviet Soyuz T-11; he told Indira Gandhi that India looked "Saare Jahan Se Achha".
• Kalpana Chawla: first woman of Indian origin in space (1997).

Why not the other options?

• ✗Neil Armstrong was the first person to walk on the Moon (1969).
• ✗Alan Shepard was the first American in space (1961).
• ✗Valentina Tereshkova was the first woman in space (1963).