Yuri Gagarin

Early life
Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin
Cosmonaut
Nationality:
Born | ,
,
Died | ,
,
Previous Occupation:
Rank: |
Time Spent in Space: | 1 hour, 48 minutes
Selection:
Mission(s):
Mission Insignia:
Yuri Gagarin was born in near , a region west of Moscow, Russia, on March 9, 1934. The town would be renamed Gagarin in 1968 to honour Yuri. His parents worked on a collective farm. While manual labourers are described in official reports as "peasants," this may be an oversimplification if applied to his parents - his mother was reportedly a voracious reader, and his father a skilled carpenter. Yuri was the third of four children, and his elder sister helped raise him while his parents worked. Like millions of people in the Soviet Union, the Gagarin family suffered great hardship in . His two elder siblings were "taken away" to Germany, apparently as conscripts, in , and did not return until after the war. His teachers described Gagarin as intelligent and hard-working, if occasionally mischievous. His mathematics teacher flew in the Red Army Air Force during the war, which presumably made some substantial impression on young Gagarin.
Colonel Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin (: Юрий Алексеевич Гагарин, Jurij Alekseeviи Gagarin; , – , ), was a who in became the first human in space and the first human to orbit the Earth.
After starting an apprenticeship in a metalworks as a foundryman, Gagarin was selected for further training at a high technical school in . While there, he joined the "AeroClub," and learned to fly a light aircraft, a hobby that would take up an increasing proportion of his time. Through dint of effort, rather than brilliance, he reportedly mastered both; in , after completing his technical schooling, he entered military flight training at the Orenburg Pilot's School. While there he met Valentina Goryacheva, whom he married in , after gaining his pilot's wings in a . Post-graduation, he was assigned to an airbase in the region, near the , where terrible weather made flying risky. As a full-grown man, Gagarin was 5 feet 2 inches (approx. 157.5cm) tall.
Career in Soviet space program
Selection and training
In , an extensive search and selection process saw Yuri Gagarin, as one of 20 cosmonauts, selected for the . Along with the other prospective cosmonauts, he had been subjected to a punishing series of experiments designed test his physical and psychological endurance, as well as training related to the upcoming flight. Out of the 20 selected, the eventual choices for the first launch were Gagarin and , because of their excellent performance in training, as well as their physical characteristics - space was at a premium in the small cockpit. Gagarin's last-minute assignment, approved at the highest levels of "the party", to take the historic flight, may have been due to Gagarin's modest upbringing and genial, outgoing personality, as opposed to the middle-class and somewhat aloof demeanor of Titov.
Space flight
Yuri Gagarin in the bus to a launch pad just before his historic flight on April 12, 1961. Behind him, seated, is his backup, .
On , , Gagarin became the first human to travel into in Vostok 3KA-2 (). His call sign in this flight was (: Кедр). According to international media, from orbit Gagarin made the comment, "I don't see any god up here." There are, however, no such words in the full verbatim record of Gagarin's conversations with the Earth during the spaceflight .
He is also known in Russian history as "The Columbus of the Cosmos."
While in orbit Gagarin was promoted "in the field" from the lowly rank of Senior to - and this was the rank at which announced him in its triumphant statement during the flight. At the time the Soviet authorities thought it was more likely he would perish during his descent than survive.
During his flight, Gagarin famously whistled the tune "The Motherland Hears, The Motherland Knows" (: "Родина слышит, Родина знает"). The first two lines of the song are: "The Motherland hears, the Motherland knows/Where her son flies in the sky". This patriotic song was written by in 1951 (opus 86), with words by Dolmatovsky.
Safely returned, rushed to his side and Gagarin issued a statement praising the as the "organiser of all our victories." Khrushchev saw Gagarin's achievement as a vindication of his policy of strengthening the Soviet Union's missile forces at the expense of conventional arms. This policy antagonized the Soviet military establishment and contributed to Khrushchev's eventual downfall.
After the flight, Gagarin became an instant, worldwide celebrity, touring widely to promote the Soviet achievement. He proved quite adept at handling the publicity. However, it appeared to gradually wear him down, and he began to drink heavily - not helped by difficulties in his marriage. In October 1961 he severely injured himself in a drunken holiday escapade while vacationing with a young nurse in the .
From 1962 he served as a deputy to the , but later returned to "", the cosmonaut facility, where he worked on designs for a reusable spacecraft.
According to various accounts, Gagarin was considered by Kremlin officials to be too valuable a public relations asset to expose to the risk of another space flight, and was not among cosmonauts in contention to fly on subsuquent Vostok and Voskhod missions.
(In the U.S., similar concerns reportedly were voiced by high NASA officials about , possibly accounting for his removal from the active flight rotation prior to his resignation from NASA in 1964.)
The Soyuz spacecraft, which entered service in 1967, was considered safer and more reliable, and Gagarin resumed active training for spaceflight.
In 1967, he was selected as the backup pilot for the Mission. Western journalists reported that, despite problems with , applied pressure for a spaceflight to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Communist revolution. Cosmonauts and technicians prepared a document listing 200 technical problems with Soyuz and gave it to party members. A few weeks before launch, the pilot, , a close friend of Gagarin, said, "If I don't make this flight, they'll send the backup pilot instead. That's (Yuri), and he'll die instead of me." After Komarov was killed when his spacecraft crashed during its return, Gagarin, very upset, said, "...if I ever find out he (Brezhnev) knew about the situation and still let everything happen, then I know exactly what I'm going to do." It is rumored that Gagarin did eventually catch up with Brezhnev and threw a drink in his face. This may be apocryphal, but as the Soviet veil of secrecy is slowly lifted such stories will be more easily verified.
Death and legacy
Yuri Gagarin Memorial Plaque - presented to the USSR on January 21, 1971. Accepting the plaque at the Moscow ceremony was Soviet Gen. , commander of the USSR's space base, where cosmonauts have been training since 1960. Gagarin, who made history with his 1 hour and 48 minute flight, lost his life in a training accident on March 27, 1968.
Gagarin then became deputy training director of . At the same time, he began to requalify as a fighter pilot. On , he and his instructor died in a UTI on a routine training flight near . It is uncertain what caused the crash, but a inquest suggests that the turbulence from a interceptor airplane using its may have caused Gagarin's plane to go out of control. Weather conditions were also poor, which probably contributed to the inability of Gagarin and the instructor to correct before they crashed.
In his book "Two Sides of the Moon" recounts that he was flying a helicopter in the same area on that day when he heard "two loud booms in the distance". Corroborating the above hypothesis, his conclusion is that a Sukhoi jet (which he identifies as a ), flying below its minimum allowed altitude, "without realizing it because of the terrible weather conditions, passed within 10 or 20 meters of Yuri and Seregin's plane while breaking the sound barrier". The resulting turbulence would have sent the MiG into an uncontrolled spin. Leonov believes the first boom he heard was that of the jet breaking the sound barrier, and the second was Gagarin's plane crashing.
A new theory, advanced by the original crash investigator in 2005, hypothesises that a cabin vent was accidentally left open by the crew or the previous pilot, thus leading to and leaving the crew incapable of controlling the aircraft. The rumor that Gagarin was drunk is almost certainly incorrect — he passed two medical examinations before the flight, and postmortem tests found no evidence of alcohol or drugs in his system. The Russian press reported he stayed with the aircraft to prevent it from hitting a school, but this too may be apocryphal.
Conspiracy theories
Although Gagarin is indisputably the first man to survive space travel, there is a that the Russians had previously launched two human beings into orbit prior to Gagarin, but both cosmonauts died en route. An alternative version states that one died, and the other landed off-course and was held by the Chinese government. The Soviet government then supposedly suppressed this information to prevent bad publicity for their space program. See the article: .
The origin of this theory lies in the fact that during the test flights of "Vostok" spacecraft a was sent to orbit, transmitting human voice to test communication equipment. This might have lead some Western fans who overheard the transmission to conclude that there is a living human aboard the spacecraft.[]
"Communism opened the way to the stars". A poster featuring Gagarin. |
Yuri Gagarin in |
Yuri Gagarin and his wife visiting |
Gagarin in the Soviet space suit


References
Leonov, Alexei, Scott, David (2004). Two Sides of the Moon (in en), 218-. .
Holt, Ed (2005-04-03). . .
Michael D Cole Vostok 1: First Human in Space, Enslow Publishers, Inc. Aldershot, UK, Springfield, New Jersey, 1995. .
Doran, Jamie, and Bizony, Piers: Starman: The Truth Behind the Legend of Yuri Gagarin, London: Bloomsbury Publishing, 1998 (paperback version, 1999). .

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