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Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin (Russian:
Ю́рий Алексе́евич
Гага́рин) (YOO-ree gah-GAH-reen) (March 9, 1934 – March 27,
1968), was a Soviet cosmonaut who in 1961 became the first man to travel into space.
Gagarin was born near Gzhatsk, and his parents worked on a collective farm. While
manual labourers and described in official reports as "peasants", this is somewhat of an exaggeration; his mother was reportedly
a voracious reader, and his father a skilled carpenter who did not advertise his abilities to avoid the wrath of Stalin's purges
against the "kulaks". The third of four children, his elder sister helped to raise him
while his parents worked. Like millions of Russians, the Gagarin family suffered great hardship in World War II. His two elder siblings were taken away to Germany in 1943, and did not return until after
the war. Gagarin himself was described as an intelligent, hard-working, if occasionally mischievous boy by his teachers. His
mathematics teacher flew in the Red Army Air Force during the war, which presumably made some substantial impression on the young
Gagarin.
After starting an apprenticeship in a metalworks, Gagarin was selected for further training at a technical school in Saratov.
While there, he joined the "AeroClub", and learned to fly a light aircraft, a hobby that began to take up an increasing
proportion of his time. Through dint of effort, rather than brilliance, he reportedly mastered both; in 1955, after completing
his technical schooling, he entered military flight training at the Orenberg Pilot's School. While there he met Valentina
Gorycheva, whom he married in 1957, after gaining his pilot's wings in a MiG-15. After
graduating, he was posted at an airbase near Murmansk, where terrible weather made
flying risky.
In 1960, an extensive search and selection process saw Gagarin, amongst 20 other cosmonauts, selected for the Soviet space program. Along with the other prospective cosmonauts,
he was subjected to a punishing series of experiments designed to test his physical and psychological endurance, as well as
training relating to the upcoming flight. Out of the 20 selected, eventually the choice for the first to launch was between
Gagarin and Gherman Titov, because of their excellent performance in
training, as well as their physical characteristics - space was at a premium in the small Vostok cockpit. The choice of Gagarin,
ultimately approved at the highest levels, was probably made due to Gagarin's modest upbringing and personality, as distinct from
the middle-class and somewhat aloof Titov.
On April 12, 1961, Gagarin became the
first human to travel into space (see Vostok
1). From orbit, Gagarin made the comment, "I don't see any god up here."
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. October 1961 he severely injured himself in a drunken holiday escapade with a young nurse
in the Crimea.
From 1962 he served as a deputy to the Supreme Soviet, but later returned to "Star
City", the cosmonaut facility, where he worked on designs for a reusable spacecraft. In 1967, he was selected as backup for the
first Soyuz launch. The Soyuz capsule's parachute failed during reentry and the craft crashed, killing Vladimir Komarov.
Gagarin then became deputy training director of the establishment. In the process of this, he began to requalify as a fighter
pilot. He was killed in a crash of a MiG-15 on a routine training flight near Moscow together with his instructor. It is uncertain what caused the crash, but a 1986 inquest
suggests that the turbulence from a Su-11 using afterburners may have caused the craft 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.
At the time, the Soviet propoganda machine made great noise about his having had stayed with the aircraft to steer it away
from a school, saving the children but at the expense of having no time to eject from the aircraft. This story has since been
generally accepted as apocryphal, more legend than truth.
Scattered resources consistently refer to a serious quarrel that took place between Gagarin and General Secretary Nikita Khrushchev at a banquet where both parties heavily insulted each
other in public using very strong language. While this clash was believed by some to be linked with Gagarin’s sudden death,
it contributed to enhancing Gagarin’s reputation as a people’s hero in Russia.
Although Gagarin is indisputably the first man to survive space travel, there is a conspiracy theory that the Russians had previously launched two human beings into orbit prior to
Gagarin, but both cosmonauts died enroute or alternatively, one died while one landed off-course and was held by the Chinese
government. The subject named most often in these theories is Vladimir Ilyushin. The Soviet government then supposedly suppressed this information to prevent bad
publicity for their space program. According to Gagarin's biography, Starman, these rumours were likely started in a
similar manner to the Roswell conspiracy theories; two
Vostok missions, equipped with dummies and tape recordings of the human voice (to check the radio worked), were made in the
period just before Gagarin's flight.
See also
- Space Race
- Yuri's Night is an international celebration held on April 12 every year to commemorate the first human in space and the first Space Shuttle
launch.
References
- Dorin, Jamie, and Bizony, Piers: Starman: The Truth behind the Legend, Bloomsbury Publishing, 1998. ISBN 0 7475 427 8.
External links
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