Yuri Gagarin becomes the first human to leave Earth's atmosphere on 12 April 1961, riding the Vostok 1 capsule through a single orbit before parachuting back into a Soviet field. This 1997 film traces how he got the seat: a shortlist of twenty fighter pilots, medical and psychological testing designed to find the calmest man in the room, and a final decision shaped as much by his working-class background as by his flying record. It follows him from a small-town upbringing to global fame, through the medals and state tours that followed the flight, and into his later work as deputy training director at the cosmonaut center outside Moscow that now carries his name. The film also covers his role as backup for Soyuz 1, the mission that killed his colleague Vladimir Komarov, and his own death in 1968 when a training jet crashed during a routine flight. Archival footage carries most of the account, restored for the fiftieth anniversary of the launch.