Question: Who was the first person to control a spacecraft, from the country the top-ranking Warsaw Pact operatives came from, despite it being headquartered in the country called the nobilities commonwealth?

Furthermore, the Supreme Commander of the Unified Armed Forces of the Warsaw Treaty Organization which commands and controls all the military forces of the member countries was also a First Deputy Minister of Defense of the USSR, and the Chief of Combined Staff of the Unified Armed Forces of the Warsaw Treaty Organization was also a First Deputy Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the USSR. The Warsaw Treaty's organization was two-fold: the Political Consultative Committee handled political matters, and the Combined Command of Pact Armed Forces controlled the assigned multi-national forces, with headquarters in Warsaw, Poland. Therefore, although ostensibly an international collective security alliance, the USSR dominated the Warsaw Treaty armed forces. <SEP> prior to the reformation, the polish nobility were mostly either roman catholic or orthodox with a small group of muslims. many families, however, soon adopted the reformed faiths. after the counter-reformation, when the roman catholic church regained power in poland, the nobility became almost exclusively catholic, despite the fact that roman catholicism was not the majority religion in commonwealth (the catholic and orthodox churches each accounted for some 40% of all citizens population, with the remaining 20% being jews or members of protestant denominations). in the 18th century, many followers of jacob frank joined the ranks of jewish-descended polish gentry. although jewish religion wasn't usually a pretext to block or deprive of noble status, some laws favoured religious conversion from judaism to christianity (see: neophyte) by rewarding it with ennoblement. <SEP> The Polish nobility enjoyed many rights that were not available to the noble classes of other countries and, typically, each new monarch conceded them further privileges. Those privileges became the basis of the Golden Liberty in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. This state of affairs grew up in part because of the extinction of the male-line descendants of the old royal dynasty (first the Piasts, then the Jagiellons), and the selection by the nobility of the Polish king from among the dynasty's female-line descendants. Despite having a king, Poland was called the nobility's Commonwealth because the king was elected by all interested members of hereditary nobility and Poland was considered to be the property of this class, not of the king or the ruling dynasty. <SEP> The Soviet Union demonstrated 24-hour launch pad turnaround and the capability to launch two piloted spacecraft, Vostok 3 and Vostok 4, in essentially identical orbits, on August 11 and 12, 1962. The two spacecraft came within approximately 6.5 kilometers (4.0 mi) of one another, close enough for radio communication. Gherman Titov became the first Soviet cosmonaut to exercise manual control of his Vostok 2 craft on August 6, 1961. Vostok 4 also set a record of nearly four days in space. Though the two craft's orbits were as nearly identical as possible given the accuracy of the launch rocket's guidance system, slight variations still existed which drew the two craft at first as close to each other as 6.5 kilometers (3.5 nautical miles), then as far apart as 2,850 kilometers (1,540 nautical miles). There were no maneuvering rockets on the Vostok to permit space rendezvous, required to keep two spacecraft a controlled distance apart. <SEP> three weeks later, on may 5, 1961, alan shepard became the first american in space, launched in a ballistic trajectory on mercury-redstone 3, in a spacecraft he named freedom 7. though he did not achieve orbit like gagarin, he was the first person to exercise manual control over his spacecraft's attitude and retro-rocket firing. after his successful return, shepard was celebrated as a national hero, honored with parades in washington, new york and los angeles, and received the nasa distinguished service medal from president john f. kennedy.