Yuri Gagarin and the first step to the stars (+photos).

To look at the sky this April 12th is to remember that humanity continues to expand its horizons. That journey that Gagarin began is far from over, because in every spark of cosmic ambition, in every brave and ingenious takeoff that defies gravity, lies the essence of what makes us human: the impulse to go beyond, to touch the stars and transform the impossible into history.

Every April 12th, the world celebrates International Human Spaceflight Day, a date that honors the historic feat of Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, the first human being to travel into space.

Portrait of Soviet cosmonaut and pilot Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin

In 1961, aboard the Vostok 1 spacecraft, he completed an orbit around the Earth in just 108 minutes, an event that transformed our understanding of the cosmos and marked a watershed in human exploration beyond the confines of our Big House.

Vostok 1, first space rocket of the Soviet Vostok space program, piloted by Gagarin in 1961.

Gagarin’s feat was not simply a triumph of Soviet science in the midst of the Cold War; it was a milestone that symbolized man’s ability to cross frontiers that until then had seemed insurmountable.

Beyond the political context, its feat showed that humanity was no longer confined to the blue planet and opened a window to the universe, with all the philosophical, technological and cultural implications that this entailed.

Three months after the event, in July 1961, Gagarin was received with effusive displays of admiration on Cuban soil, where he was decorated with the Order of Playa Girón by the former president Osvaldo Dorticós in a multitudinous ceremony held at the José Martí Revolution Square, which strengthened the ties between the Island and the Soviet Union and consolidated the fascination of the Cuban people for space exploration.

Since that pioneering experience, more than 600 astronauts from many nations have taken to the skies and cosmonautical immersion has become a field of global cooperation and scientific research through large-scale programs such as the International Space Station.

Likewise, countries such as China and India and private companies such as SpaceX have democratized access to the cosmos and promoted increasingly ambitious projects. Previously unthinkable issues such as lunar colonization, manned missions to Mars, asteroid mining and even the possibility of interplanetary citizenship today bring to the table the indomitability of the human spirit and how, in this scenario, the conquest of space will impact our destiny as a civilization and, above all, our daily lives.

To look at the sky this April 12th is to remember that humanity continues to expand its horizons. That journey that Gagarin began is far from over, because in every spark of cosmic ambition, in every brave and ingenious liftoff that defies gravity, lies the essence of what makes us human: the impulse to go beyond, to touch the stars and transform the impossible into history.

Cover photo: Historic embrace between Gagarin and Fidel Castro at the ceremony in honor of the eighth anniversary of the Moncadist heroic deed.

Written by Yadiel Barbón Salgado.