-
On April 12, 1961, a 27-year-old former steelworker turned military pilot named Yuri Gagarin squeezed into the Vostok 1 spacecraft and was launched into the unknown. His 108-minute orbital flight was more than a human milestone; it was the apotheosis of a decades-long ideological project. To the Western world, Gagarin was a brave explorer. To the Soviet Union, he was something far more profound: the living, breathing embodiment of the “New Soviet Man,” a perfected human product of the communist system, now claiming the cosmos as his rightful domain. His flight was not presented as a mere technological achievement, but…