Robert Nolden, age 13, of Erie, Pa., for his question:

WHO WAS THE FIRST MAN IN SPACE?

A Soviet astronaut by the name of Yury Alekseyevich Gagarin was the first man to travel in space. He won his spot in history when he rode aboard a satellite named Vostok I on a 17,000 m.p.h. single orbit of the Earth on April 12, 1961.

Gagarin's flight lasted just one hour and 48 minutes. It was an eliptical course that had an apogee of 203 miles and a perigee of 112 miles. It landed on Russian soil.

The astronaut was born in 1934 near Smolensk. He graduated from technical and vocational schools and then enrolled as a Soviet air force cadet in the training center at Orenburg. He graduated as a pilot in 1957.