Gagarin the Man

   Colonel Yuri Alexeyevich Gagarin entered pilot training at Orenbury in 1957 and graduated with honors from the Zhukovsky Air Force Engineering Academy in 1967.
   Gagarin was called "The Columbus of The Cosmos." His epic 108 minute Earth orbital flight on April 12,1961 was man's first encounter with the nether-regions of space and the beginning of man's journey to the stars. As pilot of the spaceship Vostok 1, he proved that man could endure the rigors of lift-off, re-entry, and weightlessness, and still perform the operations essential to spacecraft flight.
   His impressions of space flight are filled with words of poetry - joy - beauty - black sky - bright stars - these are the universal words of the pilot who knows and loves the firmament. Yuri Gagarin's life ended on March 27, 1968, when his aircraft crashed near Moscow.

Gagarin the Team

   The Gagarin Team first gathered for Advanced Space Academy at the US Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama on July 9, 2000.
   Gagarin has earned the title "The coolest group of 20 people ever." Its epic 7-day program the second week of July 2000 was man's first encounter with such an awesome congregation of people. As Space Camp trainees, they proved that eighteen trainees and two counselors could endure the rigors of waking up at 6 in the morning, food from Le Café Nasté, Area 51, the Alabama heat, and still be the greatest team to ever grace the Earth with its presence.
   The memories of that week in July, 2000 will always bring thoughts of good folks, good times, team spirit, chants, and general awesomeness. Team Gagarin's session at USSRC ended July 14, 2000, when the first of the trainees left for home.
   But the team lives on...