It’s been 60 years, to the day, since Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin was the first human to travel to space in a tiny capsule attached to an R-7 ballistic missile, a powerful rocket originally designed to carry a 3-5 megaton nuclear warhead. In this new episode marking the 60th anniversary of this historic space flight—the first of its kind—Scientific American talks to Stephen Walker, award-winning filmmaker, director and book author, about the daring launch that changed the course of human history, and charted a map to the skies and beyond.