3. Gagarin volunteered to become one of the first Soviet astronauts in 1959. As part of his training, he had to sit in a room without sound or lught for twenty-four hours! The flight of Vostok1 made him famous all around the world, and he became a hero in the Soviet Union. He never went into space again,but he helped train other astronauts until he died in a plane crash in 1968.