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(9 March 2014) --- In Karaganda, Kazakhstan, NASA astronauts Chris Cassidy (left) and Peggy Whitson (right) were among a contingent of NASA personnel paying tribute March 9 to Yuri Gagarin, the first human to fly in space on the occasion of his 80th birthday and to support the landing March 11, Kazakh time of Expedition 38 crewmembers Oleg Kotov, Sergey Ryazanskiy and NASA’s Michael Hopkins in their Soyuz TMA-10M spacecraft. 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. Photo credit: NASA