After the flight, Gagarin became an instant, worldwide celebrity, touring widely with appearances in Italy, Great Britain,^[11] Germany, Canada, and Japan to promote the Soviet achievement.

In 1962, he began serving as a deputy to the Supreme Soviet. He later returned to Star City, the cosmonaut facility, where he worked on designs for a reusable spacecraft. Gagarin worked on these designs in Star City for 7 years. Gagarin became Lieutenant Colonel (or Podpolkovnik) of the Soviet Air Force on 12 June 1962 and on 6 November 1963 he received the rank of Colonel (Polkovnik) of the Soviet Air Force.^[3] Soviet officials tried to keep him away from any flights, being wary of losing their hero in an accident. Gagarin was backup pilot for Vladimir Komarov in the Soyuz 1 flight. As Komarov's flight ended in a fatal crash, Gagarin was ultimately banned from the space program.

Memorial at the location of the crash that killed Gagarin and Seregin

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Death and legacy

Gagarin then became deputy training director of Star City. At the same time, he began to re-qualify as a fighter pilot. On 27 March 1968, he and his instructor died in a MiG-15UTI on a routine training flight near Kirzhach. It is not certain what caused the crash, but a 1986 inquest suggests that the turbulence from a Su-11 'Fishpot-C' interceptor using its afterburners may have caused Gagarin's plane to go out of control. Weather conditions were also poor, which may have contributed to the inability of Gagarin and the instructor to correct before they crashed.

In his book, Two Sides of the Moon, Alexei Leonov recounts that he was flying a helicopter in the same area that day when he heard "two loud booms in the distance." Corroborating the above hypothesis, his conclusion is that a Sukhoi jet (which he identifies as a Su-15 'Flagon'), flying below its minimum allowed altitude, "without realizing it because of the terrible weather conditions, passed within 10 or 20 meters of Yuri and Seregin's plane while breaking the sound barrier." The resulting turbulence would have sent the MiG into an uncontrolled spin. Leonov believes the first boom he heard was that of the jet breaking the sound barrier, and the second was Gagarin's plane crashing.^[12]

A new theory, advanced by the original crash investigator in 2005, hypothesizes that a cabin vent was accidentally left open by the crew or the previous pilot, thus leading to oxygen deprivation and leaving the crew incapable of controlling the aircraft.^[13]

There were two commemorative coins issued in the Soviet Union to commemorate 20th and 30th anniversaries of his flight: 1 rouble coin (1981, copper-nickel) and 3 rouble coin (1991, silver). In 2001, to commemorate the 40th anniversary of Gagarin's flight, a series of four coins bearing his likeness was issued in Russia: 2 rouble coin (copper-nickel), 3 rouble coin (silver), 10 rouble coin (brass-copper, nickel), 100 rouble coin (silver).^[14]

Gagarin is buried next to Seregin in the walls of the Kremlin on Red Square.

On 12 April 2007, the Kremlin vetoed a new investigation into the death of Gagarin. Some experts who had been involved in the original investigation had formulated a new theory, based on modern technology and investigative methods. Government officials said that they saw no reason to begin a new investigation.^[15] All found parts of the wrecked MiG-15UTI were collected and are stored in sealed barrels.

Yuri Gagarin Memorial Plaque, presented to the Soviet Union on 21 January 1971. Accepting the plaque at the Moscow ceremony was Soviet Gen. Nikolai Kuznetsov, commander of the Soviet Union's Star City space base, where cosmonauts have been training since 1960.

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See also

• Soviet space program
• Space Race
• Yuri's Night
• Soviet space program conspiracy accusations

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References

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External links

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to:

Yuri Gagarin

Wikimedia Commons has media related to:

Yuri Gagarin

• Yuri Gagarin - The First to Fly
• Obituary, NY Times, March 28, 1968 Yuri Gagarin Killed As Test Plane Falls
• (Russian) Юрий Гагарин. Дорога в космос — his book in Russian (HTML)
• (Russian) Photo, Audio and Video with Yuri Gagarin, online version of CD created to his 70th anniv. on the homepage of Russian state archive for scientific-technical documentation (RGANTD).
• (Russian) Article in online Encyclopedia of cosmonautics A lot of information about the first human's flight to space.
• (Russian) Gagarin's flight 3D visualization — contains the real record of his conversation with the Earth during the spaceflight
• (Russian) Annotated transcript of Gagarin's radio conversations with ground stations, starting 2hrs (4:10 UTC) before launch
• Gagarin — detailed biography at Encyclopedia Astronautica
• List (with photos) of Gagarin statues
• 11 minutes long interview of Yuri Gagarin by The Finnish Broadcasting Company in 1961
• Yuri's Night - World Space Party