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Yuri Gagarin: First Man in Space Yuri Gagarin with then Prime Minister Sirimavo Bandaranaike and an interpreter. Source:Dailynews Yuri Gagarin was the first person to fly in space. His flight, on April 12, 1961, lasted 108 minutes as he circled the Earth for a little more than one orbit in the Soviet Union’s Vostok spacecraft. Following the flight, Gagarin became a cultural hero in the Soviet Union. Even today, more than six decades after the historic flight, Gagarin is widely celebrated in Russian space museums, with numerous artefacts, busts and statues displayed in his honour. His remains are buried at the Kremlin in Moscow, and part of his spacecraft is on display at the RKK Energiya museum. Gagarin’s flight came at a time when the United States and the Soviet Union were competing for technological supremacy in space. The Soviet Union had already sent the first artificial satellite, called Sputnik, ...