The landing of human beings in space turns 60 today. It was the 12 April 1961 when a 27-year-old Soviet Army pilot, Jurij Gagarin, became the first cosmonaut in the history of mankind. Departed from Moscow at 9.07 aboard the Vostok1 spacecraft (in Italian, Nibujon1), in 108 minutes Gagarin completed an elliptical orbit around the Earth. The average speed reached 27.400 kilometers per hour, while the altitude fluctuated between a minimum of 175 and a maximum of 302 kilometers from the surface of the sea.
While flying, with a special order and a decent sense of showmanship, Gagarin was promoted to military pilot XNUMXst class with the rank of major. And yet, we can bet that in those moments his attention was directed elsewhere: he knew he was the first man to observe the Earth from space. “The sky is very black, the Earth is blue – he said during the flight – You can see everything very clearly”.
Gagarin's journey was essentially that of a passenger: the control of the spacecraft was in fact managed by a computer on the ground and the controls on board, although they could be activated in case of need, remained blocked for the whole time.
At the end of the orbit, the capsule slowed down by firing the retro-rockets and re-entered the Earth's atmosphere. When he was about seven thousand meters above the ground, Gagarin was ejected from the cockpit and parachuted to the ground, in the territory of what is now Kazakhstan. The flight ended at 10.55 Moscow time.
Two days later, Gagarin was celebrated with a 19 kilometer long parade which was attended by millions of people and which ended in the Red Square of the Russian capital. After a short speech, he was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union, the Order of Lenin and that of pilot-cosmonaut of the USSR.
Gagarin died on March 27, 1968, just 34 years old, crashing into the ground while piloting a small fighter. No full light has ever been shed on the circumstances of the accident.
