Photo courtesy Russian Institute of Radionavigation and Time. In 1961, he travelled on the USSRs Vostok 1 rocket. Glenn orbited the globe 3 times in 4 hours and 56 mins reaching speeds over 17,000. After completing one orbit, the spacecraft's automatic controls brought him safely back to. Glenn, Jr became the first American to orbit the Earth. On April 12, 1961, Gagarin was launched into orbit by a Vostok rocket and became the first man in space.
His pioneering 1961 spaceflight was nearly as close to the Wright brothers' first flight – just 58 years earlier – as it is to today. The first man to orbit the earth was also the first man in space. The Russian cosmonaut, Yuri Gagarin was the first human to go to space. Florida Nearly 60 years ago, Astronaut Col. He was one of the members of Mercury Seven, the seven men who flew on the.
See Also: Q&A Human Spaceflight's 50th: Glorious Past, Uncertain Future Photo Gallery Soviet Space Propaganda: Doctored Cosmonaut Photos Book Excerpt Space Shuttle Owners' Workshop ManualGagarin returned to flying jet aircraft and was killed in a training accident in 1968. He is the first American to orbit Earth and also the oldest person to fly in space. astronaut – John Glenn aboard Friendship 7 – successfully orbited the Earth. The idea of sending a man into space with a multi-stage rocket was officially pursued in the USSR from the end of 1958 under the leadership of aerospace engineer Sergey Pavlovich Korolev. Twenty-three days later, on May 5, Alan Shepard became the first American to enter suborbital space, but it took nearly a year before a U.S.