The statue of Yuri Gagarin looms over the town square in Karaganda Kazakhstan March 9 as officials prepared.

The statue of Yuri Gagarin, the first human to fly in space, looms over the town square in Karaganda, Kazakhstan March 9 as officials prepared to commemorate him on his 80th birthday. Gagarin, who died in an aircraft training accident in 1968, was launched into the history books from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on April 12, 1961. NASA astronauts and officials were in Karaganda for the commemoration in advance of supporting the landing March 11, Kazakh time, of Expedition 38 crew members Oleg Kotov, Sergey Ryazanskiy and NASA’s Michael Hopkins in their Soyuz TMA-10M spacecraft. Photo credit: NASA