While the faces of NASA's Mercury XNUMX spacecraft were on the front pages of the world's media, Russian cosmonauts were training in secret, hidden from public view.
On April 13, 1961, the special correspondent of the Soviet newspaper Izvestia, Georgy Ostroumov, meets the first man in space.
The day after returning to Earth, "space pilot" Yuri Gagarin is, Ostroumov reports, "in a good mood, healthy and cheerful...a beautiful smile that lights up his face."
"Occasionally dimples appear on his cheeks," Ostroumov writes.
"He appreciates the curiosity with which he is pressed for details of what he saw and experienced during his hour and a half off Earth."
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In a brochure published to commemorate the flight, Soviet man in space, the interview with Gagarin continues for several pages.
The cosmonaut describes the experience:
"The horizon presents a very unique and unusually beautiful scene".
And praise the Soviet Union:
"I dedicate my flight... to all our people who walk in the front lines of humanity and build a new society".
In a political system where journalism strives for propaganda rather than realistic portrayal of events, it is easy to claim that Gagarin's quotes are fabricated.
But while the censors may have perfected them, there's a good chance they're the actual words of the cosmonaut.
As a fighter pilot who grew up in a small Russian village, Gagarin was a beloved family man.
He was indeed good-looking, likable and, most importantly, a loyal member of the Communist Party.
Although the drama of NASA's early human space program played out in public, only recently has the full story of how the Soviet Union selected and trained its cosmonauts emerged.
The communist empire wanted to promote the view that the selection was open to all and that the first men in space - and the first woman, Valentina Terješkova - were volunteers.
But that's not entirely true.
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Having qualified as a fighter pilot, Gagarin was stationed at a remote airfield on Russia's border with Norway, flying MiG-15 jet fighters on the western frontier of the Cold War.
At the end of the summer of 1959, two doctors arrive at the base to talk to a pre-selected group of airmen.
Having started with a list of about 3.500 possible candidates, the doctors soon narrowed the search down to some three hundred pilots across western Russia.
"The guys who were interviewed really have no idea why they were interviewed," says Stephen Walker, author of "Outside," who spent years combing through Russian archives to piece together the full story of Gagarin's mission.
The interview consists of a seemingly casual chat about career, aspirations and family.
Some of the men were invited for a second interview. Although the doctors hint that they are looking for candidates for a new type of flying machine, at no point do they reveal their true motivation.
"They're looking for military pilots, people who have already signed up for the chance to die for their country, which is really what we're doing here, because the chances of them coming back alive weren't necessarily that great," Walker says.
While NASA recruited military test pilots as the first astronauts to fly its complex Mercury spacecraft, the Soviet Vostok capsule was designed to be operated remotely from the ground.
Except in emergencies, pilots won't get to fly much.
"They're not looking for people who have a lot of experience," Walker says.
"What they're looking for is basically a human version of a dog — someone who can sit there and endure a mission, deal with acceleration forces and come back alive."
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Much like the space dogs Soviet rocket scientists launched into space for more than a decade, the cosmonauts will have to be fit, docile and small enough to fit inside the cramped capsule.
In the end, 134 selected individuals - all young pilots, all less than 168 centimeters tall - are given the opportunity to "volunteer" for this new, top-secret assignment.
Some say it will involve training to fly a spacecraft, others believe it is a new model of helicopter.
None of the pilots may discuss the offer with colleagues or consult with family.
Meanwhile, in April 1959, the United States announces the names of its first seven astronauts from Mercury.
Candidates undergo a series of grueling physical, medical and psychological tests - detailed in Tom Wolfe's book (and his subsequent films and recent TV series) The Real Thing.
When asked at a press conference which of the tests they liked the least, astronaut candidate John Glenn answers:
"It's hard to pick one, because if you realize how many openings there are on the human body and how far you can go into any of them... you answer which one would be the hardest for you."
But with many questions about how humans will cope with the rigors of spaceflight - acceleration, weightlessness and isolation - there are many reasons to choose the physically and psychologically fittest.
The man in charge of testing Soviet space candidates is Vladimir Yazdovsky, a professor at the Moscow Institute of Aviation and Space Medicine.
He previously oversaw the space dog program, and colleagues describe him (privately) as rude and arrogant.
"He's kind of a scary James Bond horror figure," says Walker, "and he's brutal to those guys."
In almost every case, the Soviet tests are longer, more difficult and more rigorous than those endured by American astronauts.
For more than a month, candidates are injected, examined and encouraged.
They are placed in rooms with temperatures raised to 70 degrees Celsius, chambers in which oxygen is gradually reduced and vibrating seats, to simulate a launch.
Some candidates pass out, others simply leave.
Throughout the procedure, the men are forbidden to tell their families or friends what they have been doing.
Even during the month of testing, there were still those who did not know what they were being tested for.
Eventually, twenty of these young men undergo training at the new cosmonaut center.
It will be renamed "Star City", but at first it is just a few military huts in the forest near Moscow.
No press conference or announcement. Officially, the Soviet space flight program does not exist.
"If they leave the base, they're told not to tell anyone what they're doing, why they're there, and if anyone asks, tell them they're part of a sports team," Walker says.
"Everything is controlled, everything is secret. Everything is behind closed doors."
The training program itself is similar to the American one, but with less emphasis on spacecraft control.
Just like the space dogs that follow them, the men are spun at breakneck speed in centrifuges, locked in soundproof isolation chambers for days at a time and subjected to near-constant physical and psychological evaluation.
One significant difference from the American program is the amount of parachute training the Russians receive.
This is because they will have to eject from the spacecraft as they plummet towards the earth to avoid being seriously injured on impact.
The fact that the capsule and its pilot landed separately is another secret that was only revealed years later.
With several other men failing to get passing grades, an initial group of six cosmonauts were selected for the first flights.
While NASA has said publicly that it hopes to launch its first man in the spring of 1961, Soviet program chief Sergei Korolev knows he has a narrow window of opportunity.
On April 5, 1961, cosmonauts arrive at what is now known as the Baikonur Cosmodrome in the Kazakh desert where Korolev's giant R7 rocket is being prepared.
However, none of them know who will be the first in space. Finally, just a few days before launch, Gagarin gets the green light.
It was only in the official announcement that was sent while Gagarin was already in orbit above the Earth that his name was revealed to those who were not directly part of the space program.
According to the special correspondent of Izvestia, Ostroumov, on the morning of April 12, Gagarin "waved for the last time to his friends and comrades down below (the rocket), then entered the spaceship, and a few seconds later the command was given... the giant ship rose from the cloud of fire towards the stars".
Watch the video about Yuri Gagarin
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