There is, of course, a club even more elite than the first ten people to enter space. That organization is comprised of only one member: the first human being to enter space. This distinction belongs to Yuri Gagarin, a Russian. On April 11, 1961 Gagarin lifted off at the Baikonor launch complex within the Soviet Union in complete secrecy. After orbiting Earth three times, he reentered in his Vostok 1(his call sign was Cedar) spacecraft. The entire flight was automated. After reentry and once he fell below 10,000 feet, he ejected from his capsule and safely parachuted back down on Russian soil (Only several years later could anyone confirm that he ejected. Official International rules state a person must take off and land in the same craft for the record to be legal. Although, nobody would deny that Gagarin was the first in space). Regardless, Gagarin's flight was at the time, unexpected by the Western world and catapulted the Soviet Union and the United States into a space race. Furthermore, Gagarin did not just blast into space for a few minutes and come back down. He stayed in orbit for 2 hours and showed that a human being could live in orbit at least for a little while. While many of the later Russian space shots were categorized as stunts yielding little scientific data, Gagarin's flight was a terrific leap into spaceflight technically. Gagarin who became a legendary hero would never make another spaceflight. He was killed in a plane crash in 1967.
As history records, the second man into space was from the other side of the world that Gagarin came from. On May 5, 1961, less than a month after Gagarin made his flight, Alan Shepherd launched into space aboard his Mercury capsule perched atop a Redstone rocket (normally reserved as a intercontinental ballistic missile). With Shepherd's flight, America officially began the manned space race. His flight lasted 15 minutes before his Freedom 7 capsule splashed down in the Atlantic Ocean (While in space Sheperd, like all upcoming American spaceflights piloted his capsule). Officially, his flight is recorded as a sub- orbital flight, the first of two that were attempted by the United States. Shepard's flight was not the giant leap that the Russians completed with Vostok 1, but it affirmed that America was taking strong steps into spaceflight. Shepherd, who would become a national hero after his flight, was grounded for several years because of a medical condition in his ear. However, in 1970 he was given command of Apollo 14 and became the fifth American to walk on the moon. He died in 1998 of leukemia.
