Facts About Yuri Gagarin - strangefacts

• Colonel Yuri A. Gagarin was born on a collective farm in a region west of Moscow, Russia on March 9, 1934

• Soviet Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin was the first human in space and the first man to orbit the Earth making a 108-minute orbital flight in his Vostok 1 spacecraft 

• His father was a carpenter. Yuri attended the local school for six years and continued his education at vocational and technical schools

• Yuri Gagarin joined the Russian Air Force in 1955 and graduated with honors from the Soviet Air Force Academy in 1957

• Soon afterward, he became a military fighter pilot. By 1959, he had been selected for cosmonaut training as part of the first group of USSR cosmonauts

• Yuri Gagarin flew only one space mission

• On April 12, 1961 he became the first human to orbit Earth. Gagarin's spacecraft, Vostok 1, circled Earth at a speed of 27,400 kilometers per hour

• The flight lasted 108 minutes. At the highest point, Gagarin was about 327 kilometers above Earth

• Once in orbit, Yuri Gagarin had no control over his spacecraft

• Vostok's reentry was controlled by a computer program sending radio commands to the space capsule Although the controls were locked, a key had been placed in a sealed envelope in case an emergency situation made it necessary for Gagarin to take control. As was planned, Cosmonaut Gagarin ejected after reentry into Earth's atmosphere and landed by parachute

Facts About Moon - strangefacts

• Neil Armstrong stepped on the moon with his left foot first 

• Buzz Aldrin was the first man to pee his pants on the moon 

• The first men to walk on the Moon reported seeing a UFO. NASA officials told Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin to keep quiet about it

• Due to gravitational effects, you weigh slightly less when the moon is directly overhead  

• Footprints of astronauts who landed on the moon should last at least 10 million years since the moon has no atmosphere

• If someone was to fly once around the surface of the moon, it would be equal to a round trip from New York to London

• Astronaut Buzz Aldrin's mother's maiden name was "Moon." Buzz was the second man to step onto the Moon in 1969 

• The moon does not give off light of its own. It is the Sun that gives light to the Moon. The Moon reflects the Sun’s light 

• The last words spoken from the moon were from Eugene Cernan, Commander of the Apollo 17 Mission on 11 December 1972. "As we leave the Moon at Taurus-Littrow, we leave as we came, and, God willing, we shall return, with peace and hope for all mankind."  

• The final resting place for Dr. Eugene Shoemaker was the Moon. His ashes were placed on board the Lunar Prospector spacecraft before it was launched on January 6, 1998. NASA crashed the probe into a crater on the moon in an attempt to learn if there is water on the moon