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Yuri Gagarin was a cosmonaut for the Soviet Union. On April 12, 1961, he became the first human being to travel into space. His spacecraft was called "Vostok I" and it completed a single orbit of the earth in 1 hour and 48 minutes.

Yuri Gagarin was aboard but not piloting Vostok 1 on 12 April 1961. While he launched with the capsule, he did not land with it, as the Soviets did not believe that the landing system (landing on land, not water) was sufficient to assure Gagarin's survival. He ejected at 7 km above the ground and landed via parachute. This was technically a departure from the usual international definition of an orbital spaceflight. However, since Gagarin achieved orbit while Alan Shepard (first American in space) did not, the point of which country was first to orbit is moot. Vostok 2 with Gherman Titov aboard completed 17 orbits in August 1961, long before John Glenn's three-orbit flight in February, 1962.

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