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On April 12, 1961, the first man into space took off on the ship Vostok 1. Yuri Alexeyevich Gagarin flew around the Earth and then (eventually) landed safely. For the Soviet Union at the time, the first flight of a rocket with a man on board marked a significant victory in the space race over the United States. For the 27-year-old first lieutenant of the Soviet Naval Air Force, this day split his life in two. The smiling young man turned into a sad man who longed in vain to look into space again.