In 1961, Yuri Gagarin became the first human to orbit Earth — but he did not land inside Vostok 1. He ejected and parachuted to Earth separately, and Soviet officials omitted that fact from official records because aviation record rules required the pilot

In 1961, Yuri Gagarin became the first human to orbit Earth — but he did not land inside Vostok 1. He ejected and parachuted to Earth separately, and Soviet officials omitted that fact from official records because aviation record rules required the pilot

The record stands. On April 12, 1961, Yuri Gagarin became the first human to orbit the Earth. His spacecraft, Vostok 1, completed a single circuit in 108 minutes, lifting off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in what is now Kazakhstan and reentering the atmosphere over Soviet territory. However, what was not said — for roughly a decade — was that Gagarin never actually landed inside his spacecraft, and that the omission was deliberate, because admitt…