Publish Date: April 21, 1961
Cover Story: The Cruise of the Vostok
How TIME Covered the News: Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first human to leave Earth’s atmosphere, successfully orbiting the planet. The flight lasted less than two hours but represented a great scientific leap for the world – and launched the decade-long space race that followed.
“Vostok was not an unmanned satellite-impersonal, cold, emotionally empty. It had carried an ordinary man soaring across the face of the heavens, and mankind’s imagination had soared with him. Scientists could talk with new assurance about a whole new series of technological achievements that might refashion the world of the future: manned satellites watching and perhaps controlling the weather, guiding ships and airplanes, acting as communication relay stations, providing a drastic change of environment for people with diseases that cannot be cured on earth. Military men conjured up orbiting space fleets, bristling with giant nuclear missiles capable of devastating the land below.”