On April 12, 1961, Yuri Gagarin became the first person in history
to leave the Earth's atmosphere and venture into space. His flight
aboard a Russian Vostok rocket lasted only 108 minutes, but at the
end of it he had become the most famous man in the world. Back on
the ground, his smiling face captured the hearts of millions around
the globe. Film stars, politicians and pop stars from Europe to
Japan, India to the United States vied with each other to shake his
hand.
Despite this immense fame, almost nothing is known about Gagarin or
the exceptional people behind his dramatic space flight. "Starman"
tells for the first time Gagarin's personal odyssey from peasant to
international icon, his subsequent decline as his personal life
began to disintegrate under the pressures of fame, and his final
disillusionment with the Russian state. President Kennedy's quest
to put an American on the Moon was a direct reaction to Gagarin's
achievement--yet before that successful moonshot occurred, Gagarin
himself was dead, aged just thirty-four, killed in a mysterious air
crash. Publicly the Soviet hierarchy mourned; privately their sighs
of relief were almost audible, and the KGB report into his death
remains secret.
Entwined with Gagarin's history is that of the breathtaking and
highly secretive Russian space program - its technological daring,
its triumphs and disasters. In a gripping account, Jamie Doran and
Piers Bizony reveal the astonishing world behind the scenes of the
first great space spectacular, and how Gagarin's flight came
frighteningly close to destruction.
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