The Russian cosmonaut Yuri Alexeivich Gagarin (1934-1968) was the first man to orbit the earth in an artificial satellite and thus ushered in the age of manned spaceflight.

Yuri Gagarin, the third child of Alexei Ivanovich, a carpenter on a collective farm, and Anna Timofeyevna, was born on March 9, 1934, in the village of Klushino, Smolensk Province. Yuri attended an elementary school in Gzhatsk; in the sixth grade he began to study physics. At the age of 15 he became an apprentice foundryman in an agricultural machinery plant outside Moscow and enrolled in an evening school.

In 1951 Gagarin transferred to the Saratov Industrial Technical School. In 1955 he had to prepare a thesis in order to graduate. His problem was to design a foundry capable of producing 9,000 tons (metric) of castings a year. The state examining committee accepted his thesis, and he received his diploma.

Gagarin joined the Saratov Flying Club...