WATCH: The first woman in space, Valentina Tereshkova, shouted, “Hey, sky, take off your hat; I’m on my way!” Tereshkova’s flight lasted nearly 71 hours. (Soviet Space Pro ...

On June 19, 1963, two Soviet spacecraft named Vostok 5 and Vostok 6 returned to Earth, ending a historic joint mission. Vostok 6 was carrying cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova, who became the first woman ...

On July 27, 1962, two Russian cosmonauts boarded a Soviet airliner and experienced weightlessness without going to space. This was the first time cosmonauts completed zero-G training on an airplane.

Vostok-1, the first manned spaceship, landed empty, as Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin made an early exit via parachute and touched down a few kilometers away. AFP/Getty Images The “space race” of the ...

MOSCOW (AP) — Crushed into the pilot’s seat by heavy G-forces, Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin saw flames outside his spacecraft and prepared to die. His voice broke the tense silence at ground control: ...

Click to open image viewer. This is a one-third scale model of the spacecraft that carried Yuri Gagarin, a Soviet pilot, into space making him the first person to orbith the Earth on April 12, 1961.