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YURI GAGARIN HEADLINE

On April 12, 1961, the era of human spaceflight began when the Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first human to orbit the Earth in his Vostock I spacecraft. The flight lasted 108 minutes.

Twenty years later, on the morning of April 12, 1981, two astronauts sat strapped into their seats on the flight deck of Columbia, a radically new spacecraft known as the space shuttle.

For more information on the STS-1, NASA first shuttle flight, visit <a href="http://www.nasa.gov/sts1">www.nasa.gov/sts1</a>.