Orbiter - Vostok 1 - First Ever Manned Spaceflight

Orbiter is a free spaceflight simulator, it's got much more detail on the actual flying and vehicles than KSP, but lacks the building and real time rigid body physics that provide so much entertainment in KSP. But if you want to experience real spacecraft then it's probably a better choice

The Vostok Plugin I use is by Igel it supports all of the Vostok missions - including the ones with animals as passengers.

Videos featured in the credits:

[KossolaxtheForesworn]

yuri gagarin was a brave man. no wonder his massive monument immortalized like a super hero.

[pjousma]

I'm never going on a space flight with Scott Manley, he'll be like: "actually let's just do that, switch into manual control mode and fly that thing around."

[odysseusrex]

The interior room of the Vostok capsule is quite impressive. The old NASA hands called them flying offices.

[ZavorotKostey]

Gagarin is like Jebediah - smiles whatever happens.

[avj_curvebreaker]

Today I learned that Yuri Gagarin reentered in a goddamn cannonball.

[pavelZhd]

Yuri's words were:
Поехали! (Let's ride!)

[waterlubber]

"Appreciate the sounds of the instrumentation"
*ksp music begins playing in background*
Oh, my burn is done!

[kproductions]

Scott, I love how you are doing a historical perspective.  The early space program is something that just isn't taught anymore, and I find that quite disheartening.  It is awesome to see a fellow space enthusiast out there.  Keep up the good work.

Can't wait to see your perspective on Voskhod 2 (boy, that was an amazing story, hidden for the longest time).

[CachorroPodre]

Even Gagarin used mechjeb all the way-out! How could you blame Scott from using it!?!?!?!?!?

[WheatleyOS]

I speak Russian, but that just sounded like a squeaking tin can. The more I turned up the volume, the more it sounded like that.

[ScripturusEU]

In Soviet Russia, spacecraft flies you!

[MrPashee]

Thank you for this, Comrade Manley ) Respecting you for knowledge of our history. I hope someday one russian cosmonaut and an astronaut from US will make a first step together on the Mars) From Russia, with love)

[MrJest]

This is actually kind of cool... a perspective on history you could never have imagined, much less SEEN, at the time.

[nblax]

The pilot of Soyuz 1, Vladimir Komarov, was apparently the first choice for Vostok 1 but the Soviets didn't want to risk their best pilot so Gagarin was chosen in his place. Komarov was given the more demanding Soyuz launch which ended up killing him.

[josefodium]

Gagarin's phrase in English would be something like “Let's ride”.

The flight was fully automated since nobody new if a man can pilot one at all. Remember that was the first flight.
Medics fully believed that conditions of the spaceflight can knock a person unconscious or alter their perceptions in some major way.
Russian space tests were on dogs and they were not really fond of zero G going full berserk on those capsules.

Tyuratam was basically a test launch site to get all the tech straight for Baikonur spaceport that was still under construction. The name was taken from a small village situated nearby, which was a common practice for all kinds of industrial complexes in USSR (practice being - name the thing same as the closest town while it is under construction and then give it some pompous formal name after it is operational).
Baikonur spaceport was chosen as a name for the whole complex of launch sites and infrastructure.
They are in the same area. Tyuratam even served as Baikonur's reserve launch site after the latter became fully operational.
So no renaming really occurred, they just used a formal name of the spaceport and not the working name of the launch site in the international announcement. Makes sense, if you ask me.

[vonKartoffel]

When i saw the Thumbnail i thought its KSP

[LTrotskystCentury]

So many Americans think their space program was the first in many things, and it's good that sims like Orbiter and KSP have mods that can teach people about *both* space programs. If enough people in every country become aware of what we (humanity) did 50 years ago, maybe humanity can have a real, global space program - with all of the resources and technology of the globe we have today we could do just about anything in the solar system we, collectively, wanted to do.

[sirHonbob]

damn, 9 years on and this video still beats most.

[Edax_Royeaux]

It's a shame Kerbal Space Program doesn't have engine cluster designs that makes a simple 20 engine rocket feasible.

[twistedyogert]

Even if he was ejected before landing I'd still consider Yuri to be the first person to orbit the Earth.
The records people should've made exception for safety protocols.