How Vostok 1 worked – 51 years of spaceflight

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On April 12, 1961, Yuri Gagarin became the first man to enter space. Today, on the 51st anniversary, we take a look back at his famous mission and how far we’ve come since then.  On 12 April 1961, Yuri Gagarin became the first human in history to reach low-Earth orbit, otherwise known as ‘space’. He travelled there inside a metal sphere called Vostok 1, the world’s first manned spacecraft, beating American Alan Shepard into space by just 25 days.Vostok 1 was a spherical cabin, coated entirely in an ablative material to act as a heat shield as it re-entered the atmosphere. more...