Celebrating 50 years of Manned Spaceflight - Part 1: THE PIONEERS

Yuri Gagarin: first human being to journey into outer space 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 first human being to leave the confines of the Earth's atmosphere.