Includes bibliographical references (pages 419-486) and index.
Summary:
A young Russian sits inside a tiny capsule on top of the Soviet Union's most powerful intercontinental ballistic missile -- originally designed to carry a nuclear warhead -- and blasts into the skies. His name is Yuri Gagarin. And he is about to make history. Traveling at almost 18,000 miles per hour -- ten times faster than a rifle bullet -- Gagarin circles the globe in just 106 minutes. From his windows he sees the earth as nobody has before, crossing a sunset and a sunrise, crossing oceans and continents, witnessing its beauty and its fragility. While his launch begins in total secrecy, within hours of his landing he has become a world celebrity -- the first human to leave the planet. -- Publisher's description.
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