Transcript Yuri Gagarin

Yuri Gagarin the first
cosmonaut
Career in the Soviet space program
In 1960 20 pilots including Gagarin were chosen for the Soviet space
program. Subsequently he was chosen for an elite training group. All the
pilots were tested for both psychological and physical power. At the end
of the test program Gherman Titov and Yuri Gagarin were selected
because their results were the best. Moreover, physical characteristics of
these cosmonauts were the most appropriate. They both were not tall.
Gagarin’s height was 1.57 metres.
Gagarin’s character was described as attentive and persistent. He also
had a good memory, vivid imagination, fast response and other mental
abilities. An Air Force doctor considered that Gagarin understood life
better than others. It should be noted that Yuri liked sports. He played
ice hockey and was a basketball fan.
It is known that when the twenty pilots chose anonymously one of them
for the first flight, all but three voted for Yuri Gagarin.
Space flight
On 12 April 1961 the first human travelled into space.
Gagarin was aboard the Vostok 1 and he orbited the
Earth. This great event made Yuri Gagarin famous and
he received a lot of honours and medals. Gagarin
became the Hero of the Soviet Union.
Soviet cosmonauts Pavel Popovich, Yuri Gagarin,
Valentina Tereshkova.
Yuri Gagarin on vacation with friends
Death
On 27 March 1968 Yuri
Gagarin and Vladimir
Seryogin died in a MiG-15
crash. The incident was near
Kirzhach. The Cosmonaut
Training Centre outside
Moscow and the town of
Gzhatsk were named after
Yuri Gagarin.
These coins tell about the
history of space exploration.