The mission that almost wasn't Vostok 1 was a mission that almost didn't happen. There was great opposition from the military, who saw manned spaceflight as a waste of time and resources.

See how the first human spaceflight actually occurred when the Soviet Union launched cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin on Vostok 1 on April 12, 1961. Yuri Gagarin orbited the Earth for 108 minutes to usher ...

Oct. 4, 1957: The Soviet Union secretly fires Sputnik 1 into space, making it the world’s first artificial satellite. ... 108-minute orbit aboard the Vostok 1 spacecraft. May 5, 1961: ...

Soviet-era cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin carried a small doll with him on his Vostok 1 mission to watch it float. Since then, the zero-g indicators have varied from homemade dolls to off-the-shelf ...

Vostok 2 launched Aug. 6, 1961 and carried Gherman Titov into space, making him the first person to spend a full day in space. On Aug. 11, 1962, Vostok 3 sent Andriyan Nikolayev to orbit.

Vostok-1, the first manned spaceship, landed empty, as Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin made an early exit via parachute and touched down a few kilometers away. AFP/Getty Images The “space race ...

The pad is known as Gagarin's Start because it hosted the world's first human spaceflight in 1961, when the Vostok 1 mission carrying Yuri Gagarin blasted into orbit.