Sixty Years ago, Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Alexseyevich Gagarin became the first human in space. On April 12, 1961, his remotely controlled Vostok 1 spacecraft lofted him to an altitude of about 200 miles and carried him once around the planet. The world learned about the first manned flight into space through a brief communiqué from the Soviet TASS News Agency. Mercury astronaut Alan Shepard became the first American in space less than a month later.