Pin made in the Soviet Union with the image of the Vostok 1 rocket. At the bottom of the pin is the date of the first mannend space flight. Yuri Gagarin became the first human in outer space when his Vostok spacecraft completed one orbit of the Earth on 12 April 1961 in the Vostok 1 mission. Gagarin became an international celebrity and was awarded many medals and titles, including Hero of the Soviet Union, his nation’s highest honour. Gagarin died in 1968 when the training jet he was piloting crashed.