Post by yenilira on Apr 12, 2011 0:40:40 GMT 1
Just after 6 a.m. this morning fifty years ago, the world woke up to find itself at the dawn of a new era.
The Russians had launched a rocket – Vostok 1 – into orbit.
In it, not the customary four-legged animal as in previous missions, but an actual, living, human being,
Sputnik 1, the earth-orbiting artificial satellite (launched on 4th October, 1957) was the start of the ‘space age’, whilst the first creature propelled into outer space was ‘Laika’ who was generally accepted as part husky or other Nordic breed, of dog, and possibly part terrier, in Sputnik 2 the following month.
There have been seven missions with dogs as ‘passengers’ – the Korabi-Sputnik programmes - but Vostok 1 was the first with a man, under the development name of 3KA #3.
The name of the cosmonaut, the first person in space, was soon to be on everybody’s lips – Yuri Gagarin.
Words now familiar to us all –
“Preliminary stage….intermediate….main…. LIFT OFF!.
We wish you a good flight, everything is all right.”
Strapped into his seven-foot diameter capsule, the world’s first man in space replied “Poyekhali.”, Russian for “Off we go.”
Less than two hours later, after being the first man to see Earth from space, Gagarin ejected from the spacecraft and parachuted to earth, about 200 miles off course.
The flight wasn’t without its malfunctions and mishaps;
for example, an error in one of the launch engines carried the craft into a higher than planned orbit, which could have resulted in the oxygen running out. Fortunately, the engines fired, but not in the way the designers anticipated. Consequently, the spacecraft went into a dramatic spin, but eventually it corrected itself.
During re-entry, Gagarin was subjected to a G-force of 10G, meaning that he weighed ten times his usual weight.
His iconic status didn’t just stem from the fact that he had returned safely, thereby proving that man could survive the rigours of a voyage into the void.
He was also young (27), only 5’2” in height, but attractive, charming, and put a human face on the Communist block.
He was feted as much in the Western world as he was in the Motherland.
Yuri Gagarin was killed when his MIG crashed whilst on a routine flight on March 27th, 1968, leaving a wife and two daughters.
His ashes are buried in the Kremlin and that says a lot he’s the only male Soviet icon whose popularity survived the collapse of Communism.
Gagarin was born in the village of Klushino near Gzhatsk (now in Smolensk Oblast, Russia), on 9 March 1934. The adjacent town of Gzhatsk was renamed Gagarin in 1968 in his honour.
A monument to Yuri Gagarin faces the rising Moon over the Baikonur Cosmodrome's Site 2, where the first cosmonaut of the planet spent his last night before the historic flight in April 1961 -
www.russianspaceweb.com/images/centers/baikonur/baikonur_gagarin_mon_2_1.jpg
A statue in his honour will be unveiled in London in July, near to that of Captain James Cook.
Yuri Gagarin – his life and times.
www.russianarchives.com/gallery/gagarin/
YL.
The Russians had launched a rocket – Vostok 1 – into orbit.
In it, not the customary four-legged animal as in previous missions, but an actual, living, human being,
Sputnik 1, the earth-orbiting artificial satellite (launched on 4th October, 1957) was the start of the ‘space age’, whilst the first creature propelled into outer space was ‘Laika’ who was generally accepted as part husky or other Nordic breed, of dog, and possibly part terrier, in Sputnik 2 the following month.
There have been seven missions with dogs as ‘passengers’ – the Korabi-Sputnik programmes - but Vostok 1 was the first with a man, under the development name of 3KA #3.
The name of the cosmonaut, the first person in space, was soon to be on everybody’s lips – Yuri Gagarin.
Words now familiar to us all –
“Preliminary stage….intermediate….main…. LIFT OFF!.
We wish you a good flight, everything is all right.”
Strapped into his seven-foot diameter capsule, the world’s first man in space replied “Poyekhali.”, Russian for “Off we go.”
Less than two hours later, after being the first man to see Earth from space, Gagarin ejected from the spacecraft and parachuted to earth, about 200 miles off course.
The flight wasn’t without its malfunctions and mishaps;
for example, an error in one of the launch engines carried the craft into a higher than planned orbit, which could have resulted in the oxygen running out. Fortunately, the engines fired, but not in the way the designers anticipated. Consequently, the spacecraft went into a dramatic spin, but eventually it corrected itself.
During re-entry, Gagarin was subjected to a G-force of 10G, meaning that he weighed ten times his usual weight.
His iconic status didn’t just stem from the fact that he had returned safely, thereby proving that man could survive the rigours of a voyage into the void.
He was also young (27), only 5’2” in height, but attractive, charming, and put a human face on the Communist block.
He was feted as much in the Western world as he was in the Motherland.
Yuri Gagarin was killed when his MIG crashed whilst on a routine flight on March 27th, 1968, leaving a wife and two daughters.
His ashes are buried in the Kremlin and that says a lot he’s the only male Soviet icon whose popularity survived the collapse of Communism.
Gagarin was born in the village of Klushino near Gzhatsk (now in Smolensk Oblast, Russia), on 9 March 1934. The adjacent town of Gzhatsk was renamed Gagarin in 1968 in his honour.
A monument to Yuri Gagarin faces the rising Moon over the Baikonur Cosmodrome's Site 2, where the first cosmonaut of the planet spent his last night before the historic flight in April 1961 -
www.russianspaceweb.com/images/centers/baikonur/baikonur_gagarin_mon_2_1.jpg
A statue in his honour will be unveiled in London in July, near to that of Captain James Cook.
Yuri Gagarin – his life and times.
www.russianarchives.com/gallery/gagarin/
YL.