The Cosmonaut Who Couldn’t Stop Smiling"Let's go!" With that, the boyish, grinning Yuri Gagarin launched into space on April 12, 1961, becoming the first human being to exit Earth's orbit. The twenty seven year old lieutenant colonel departed for the stars from within the shadowy world of the Soviet military industrial complex. Barbed wires, no entry placards, armed guards, false identities, mendacious maps, and a myriad of secret signs had hidden Gagarin from prying outsidersnot even his