Who was the first successful man to orbit the earth and return safely?
The first man who had a successful space travel was 27- years-cld Fit Maj. Yuri Alexeyvich Gagarin, who was launched from Baikonur, Western Siberia, in the Russian spacecraft Vostok I at 09.07 hr Moscow time on 12 April 1961, and landed 108 min later at the village of Smelovka, near Engels in the Saratov region of the USSR. The 6.17- ton carrier-rocket contained a 2.4-ton capsule which Was released when the speed of the spacecraft reached orbital velocity, about 7.8 km a sec. Gagarin then made a single orbit of the Earth at a maximum height of 203 miles and a maximum speed of 28,000 kph (17.398 mph). The first astronaut to return safely to earth, Maj. Gagarin was killed in an aircraft crash near Moscow on 27 March 1968.
