On April 12, 1961, Yury Gagarin made history by being
the first human to orbit the earth.Before Gagarin climbed aboard the
rocket, he made a speech. His speech said things such as how beautiful a moment
this was, to go into space. He was glad to, "meet nature face to face, in
an unprecedented encounter." Luckily, this time, it worked
correctly and Vostok 1 came out of orbit and was slowed down by 350 miles per
hour. As the capsule came out of orbit, the equipment section was dropped,
because it was no longer needed. Now all that was left of the 125-ft. rocket,
launched just over an hour ago, was a 7 1/2-ft diameter capsule. As it fell
17,000 mph. towards earth, Gagarin experienced 10 gs, and felt like a
1,500-pound brick falling from the sky. With a flight time of about 1 hour
and 48 min., Gagarin landed safely in Siberia.