Gagarin was born in Moscow on March 9, 1934.  He joined the Soviet Air Force in 1955 and began training to become a cosmonaut in 1959.  Gagarin flew on the Vostok 1 spacecraft and orbited the earth at 27,400 kilometers per hour.  Wow, that is pretty fast.  The flight lasted 108 minutes.  That seems pretty quick when you are used to walking, driving a car, or taking an airplane.  “What did you just do?” “I watched a football game.” “Oh, I just orbited the earth during that game.” Crazy.  Gagarin did not land in Vostok 1, but ejected and came down to Earth in a parachute.  He died on March 27, 1968 before he could go to space again.

Phineas wants me to mention an interesting political event that happened with Yuri Gagarin’s flight.  It was reported by many that while in space Gagarin said, “I don’t see any God up here.” However, there are no words like that in the transcript from space.  At the time there was a great deal of anti-religious feeling from the Communist Party in the Soviet Union.

Oh yeah, Barley wants me to tell you that there is a crater on the Moon named after Gagarin.  Okay, I’m out of here before Rhonda wants me to say something.