"A young Russian sits inside a tiny capsule on top of the Soviet Union's most powerful intercontinental ballistic missile--originally designed to carry a nuclear warhead--and blasts into the skies. His name is Yuri Gagarin. And he is about to make history. Travelling at almost 18,000 miles per hour--ten times faster than a rifle bullet--Gagarin circles the globe in just 106 minutes. From his windows he sees the earth as nobody has before, crossing...

On April 12, 1961, Yuri Gagarin became the first person to venture into space, gaining worldwide fame in a quick 108-minute journey. Starman tells for the first time Gagarin's personal odyssey from peasant to international icon, his disintegration under the pressure of fame, and his final disillusionment with the USSR. Before President Kennedy had put an American on the moon, Gagarin himself was dead, killed at age thirty-four in a mysterious air...