Gagarin Yuri
Yuri Gagarin, Soviet Cosmonaut, Signed Photo: First Man in Space!







3.75" x 5.75" black and white semi-glossy textured photograph of Yuri Gagarin (1934-1968), wearing Soviet Air Force uniform without cap. Slabbed and graded MINT 9 by PSA/DNA. Gagarin’s signature in Cyrillic letters appears along the bottom margin. In exceptional condition.




Yuri Gagarin was the first human to travel to outer space. The trained air force pilot and officer was handpicked in 1960 to test into the new Soviet space program. He later became one of the program’s top candidates, called the Sochi 6. Gagarin’s psychological and physical endurance, as well as his small statue (5’2”), made him an ideal candidate for future space missions. Gagarin broke records when he successfully manned the Vostok I space capsule into outer space on April 12, 1961. He made a full orbit around Earth lasting 108 minutes before parachuting into the atmosphere at 23,000 feet.




Soviet aeronautics may have been advanced enough to send a man to space, but it was still extremely dangerous. Gagarin was the backup crew for the April 1967 Soyuz I mission in which fellow cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov (1927-1967) died. Gagarin himself was killed in a routine training mission at age 34 less than a year later.




Gagarin’s Vostok I 1961 mission clenched a Soviet victory in the Space Race, a symbolic reiteration of the Cold War. The Americans responded with their own manned orbital space flight ten months later.








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