Jean-François Clervoy
Yuri Gagarin will remain as the first Earth explorer of space that all astronauts and cosmonauts recognise in one form or another. He opened the door to space travel for humankind. Of course, he was not the first living being to venture into space, but he was the first one to be able to describe and recall, with the intelligence that characterises mankind, the emotions and sensations experienced in the very special environment of space. One should not underestimate the importance of his first words sent from space, “I feel well.” The mission controllers on the ground anxiously awaited these first words. Would the first representative of humankind be able to survive this flight and present space in a way that would be acceptable to the rest of us on Earth? Or would he suffer so much that it would forever break our will to make fantastic trips to the Cosmos?
 On the STS-84 mission of the Space Shuttle Atlantis, in May 1997, I stayed nearly five days on the Russian Mir space station. When you enter of the core module of Mir, you could not be unaware of the photo of Gagarin. He held court over the living quarters where the crew met several times a day for meals, break times or sometimes repairing various instruments on the central dining table that occasionally doubled as a do-it-yourself workbench. Gagarin dominated also the access to the two sleeping berths on either side of this dining room. He was accompanied by a photo of Tsiolkovski, the visionary father of astronautics in Russia. The serene but concentrated look of Yuri characterised the professional attitude of the first explorers of space. His calm face indicated his mission of peace. He had become a universal icon in the history of the conquest of space. I could not remain indifferent to this black and white portrait that had already travelled on preceding Russian space stations, the yellow edges of which evoked the successive events and incidents experienced by generations of space explorers. I had to bring back a memory of this legendary face that I had the honour to mix with during about one hundred Earth orbits, with the admiration and respect that I felt towards the first pioneer of the Cosmos. Astronaut Mike Foale immortalised these instances for me with his Nikon F4 camera the day before of our departure from the Russian station. The photo unites my family with our hero of human kind. I hope that this famous portrait of Yuri Gagarin will witness again many more passages of astronauts and cosmonauts on board the spaceships of the future, including, hopefully, one that will take humans towards Mars.
Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin was born on 9 March 1934 in the village of Klushino near Gzhatsk (now in Smolensk Oblast, Russia).
His parents, Alexei Ivanovich Gagarin and Anna Timofeyevna Gagarina, worked on a collective farm. Yuri was the third of four children, and his elder sister helped raise him while his parents worked. After starting an apprenticeship in a metalworks as a foundryman, Gagarin was selected for further training at a technical high school in Saratov. While there, he joined the 'AeroClub', and learned to fly light aircraft, a hobby that would take up an increasing part of his time. In 1955, after completing his technical schooling, he entered flight training at the Orenburg Military Pilot's School. While there he met Valentina Goryacheva, whom he married in 1957, after gaining his pilot's wings in a MiG-15. After graduation, he was assigned to Luostari airbase in Murmansk Oblast. He became a lieutenant in the Soviet air force on 5 November 1957, and was promoted to senior lieutenant on 6 November 1959.
After Soviet Union decided to launch a human being to space, a secret nationwide selection process was started in 1960 and Gagarin was chosen with 19 other pilots. Gagarin was further selected for an elite training group known as the 'Sochi Six', who would make up the the first cosmonauts of the Vostok programme. Gagarin and the other prospective cosmonauts were subjected to experiments designed to test physical and psychological endurance; he also underwent training for the upcoming flight. Out of the 20 selected, the eventual choices for the first launch were Gagarin and Gherman Titov, because of their performance in training, as well as their physical characteristics — space was at a premium in the small Vostok cockpit and both men were rather short. Gagarin was 1.57 metres tall. In August 1960, when Gagarin was one of 20 possible candidates, an air force doctor evaluated his personality as: "Modest; embarrasses when his humour gets a little too racy; high degree of intellectual development evident; fantastic memory; distinguishes himself from his colleagues by his sharp and far-ranging sense of attention to his surroundings; a well-developed imagination; quick reactions; persevering, prepares himself painstakingly for his activities and training exercises, handles celestial mechanics and mathematical formulae with ease as well as excels in higher mathematics; does not feel constrained when he has to defend his point of view if he considers himself right; appears that he understands life better than a lot of his friends."
Gagarin was also a favoured candidate by his peers. When the 20 candidates were asked to anonymously vote for which other candidate they would like to see as the first to fly, all but three chose Gagarin. One of his colleagues, cosmonaut Yevgeni Khrunov, believed that Gagarin was very focused, and was demanding of himself and others when necessary. Gagarin kept physically fit throughout his life, and was a keen sportsman. Cosmonaut Valeri Bykovsky wrote: "Service in the air force made us strong, both physically and morally. All of us cosmonauts took up sports and PT seriously when we served in the air force. I know that Yuri Gagarin was fond of ice hockey. He liked to play goal keeper... I don't think I am wrong when I say that sports became a fixture in the life of the cosmonauts."
In April 1961, Gagarin became the first human to travel into space, launching to orbit aboard the Vostok 3KA-3 (Vostok 1). After the flight, he became a global celebrity, touring widely to promote the Soviet achievement. In 1962, he began serving as a deputy to the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union. He later returned to the Star City training facility, where he spent some years working on designs for a reusable spacecraft. He was promoted to lieutenant-colonel in June 1962, and then to colonel in November 1963. Soviet officials tried to keep him away from flying aircraft, being worried of losing their hero in an accident. Gagarin had served as back-up pilot for Vladimir Komarov on Soyuz 1. When Komarov's flight ended in a fatal crash, Gagarin was ultimately banned from training for and participating in further spaceflights.
On 27 March 1968, Gagarin took off with MiG-15UTI fighter with flight instructor Vladimir Seryogin for a routine training flight from Chkalovsky Air Base, but the flight ended tragically: their plane crashed near the town of Kirzhach. Gagarin was laid to rest in the wall of the Kremlin on Red Square.
Yuri Gagarin was the first person to fly in space. His flight, on April 12, 1961, lasted 108 minutes as he circled the Earth for a little more than one orbit in the Soviet Union's Vostok spacecraft. Following the flight, Gagarin became a cultural hero in the Soviet Union. Even today, more than six decades after the historic flight, Gagarin is widely celebrated in Russian space museums, with numerous artifacts, busts and statues displayed in his honor. His remains are buried at the Kremlin in Moscow, and part of his spacecraft is on display at the RKK Energiya museum. Gagarin's flight came at a time when the United States and the Soviet Union were competing for technological supremacy in space. The Soviet Union had already sent the first artificial satellite, called Sputnik, into space in October 1957. Before Gagarin's mission, the Soviets sent a test flight into space using a prototype of the Vostok spacecraft. During this flight, they sent a life-size dummy called Ivan Ivanovich and a dog named Zvezdochka into space. After the test flight, the Soviet's considered the vessel fit to take a human into space. [Infographic: How the First Human Spaceflight Worked] Becoming a legendary astronautThe third of four children, Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin was born on March 9, 1934, in a small village a hundred miles from Moscow. As a teenager, Gagarin witnessed a Russian Yak fighter plane make an emergency landing near his home. When offered a chance years later to join a flying club, he eagerly accepted, making his first solo flight in 1955. Only a few years later, he submitted his request to be considered as a cosmonaut. [Photos: Yuri Gagarin & 50 Years of Human Spaceflight] More than 200 Russian Air Force fighter pilots were selected as cosmonaut candidates. Such pilots were considered optimal because they had exposure to the forces of acceleration and the ejection process, as well as experience with high-stress situations. Gagarin, a 27-year-old senior lieutenant at the time, was among the pilots selected. On April 12, 1961, at 9:07 a.m. Moscow time, the Vostok 1 spacecraft blasted off from the Soviets' launch site. Because no one was certain how weightlessness would affect a pilot, the spherical capsule had little in the way of onboard controls; the work was done either automatically or from the ground. If an emergency arose, Gagarin was supposed to receive an override code that would allow him to take manual control, but Sergei Korolev, chief designer of the Soviet space program, disregarded protocol and gave the code to the pilot prior to the flight. Over the course of 108 minutes, Vostok 1 traveled around the Earth once, reaching a maximum height of 203 miles (327 kilometers). The spacecraft carried 10 days' worth of provisions in case the engines failed and Gagarin was required to wait for the orbit to naturally decay. But the supplies were unnecessary. Gagarin re-entered Earth's atmosphere, managing to maintain consciousness as he experienced forces up to eight times the pull of gravity during his descent. Vostok 1 had no engines to slow its re-entry and no way to land safely. About 4 miles (7 km) up, Gagarin ejected from the spacecraft and parachuted to Earth. In order for the mission to be counted as an official spaceflight, the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI), the governing body for aerospace records, had determined that the pilot must land with the spacecraft. Soviet leaders indicated that Gagarin had touched down with the Vostok 1, and they did not reveal that he had ejected until 1971. Regardless, Gagarin still set the record as the first person to leave Earth's orbit and travel into space. [Milestones in Human Spaceflight: Pictures] Gagarin's legacyUpon his return to Earth, Gagarin was an international hero. A cheering crowd of hundreds of thousands of people greeted him in Red Square, a public plaza in Moscow. A national treasure, Gagarin traveled around the world to celebrate the historic Soviet achievement. When he returned home, Gagarin became a deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union (the highest legislative body in the Soviet Union) and was appointed commander of the Cosmonauts' Detachment. Because the Soviets did not want to risk losing such an important public figure, they were hesitant about allowing Gagarin to return to space. He continued to make test flights for the Air Force, however. On March 27, 1968, Gagarin was killed (along with another pilot) while test-piloting a MiG-15, a jet fighter aircraft. He was survived by his wife, Valentina Ivanovna Goryacheva, and two daughters. NASA's Apollo 11, the first mission to put people on the moon, landed in July 1969, and the crew left behind a commemorative medallion bearing Gagarin's name. They also left medallions for other astronauts who lost their lives in space or while preparing for spaceflight. Over time, the U.S. and the Soviet Union began working together in their spaceflight endeavors. The first joint U.S.-Soviet spaceflight was in 1975, called Apollo-Soyuz. Following that, NASA sent several space shuttle astronauts to Soviet/Russian space station Mir after the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. The shuttle-Mir collaboration paved the way for NASA and the Russian space agency (Roscosmos) to become major partners in the International Space Station program, which first launched modules in 1998 and continues research today. Gagarin's importance in the Russian space program continues. Crews using the Soyuz spacecraft participate in a number of prelaunch traditions prior to climbing on to the spacecraft — such as urinating on the launch bus tires — to follow in the footsteps of Gagarin's historic flight. Beyond that, Gagarin is often held up as an example of character and heroism to younger children in Russia. The 60th anniversary of Gagarin's flight will be in 2021. The space community also commemorates Gagarin's achievement every year with Yuri's Night, a celebration that takes place on his launch date of April 12. Yuri's Night was founded in 2001 and attracts thousands of celebrants each year. This article was updated on Oct. 12, 2018 by Space.com Contributor, Elizabeth Howell. Editor's Note: This article was updated on Oct. 15, 2018 at 10:08 a.m. EDT to reflect a correction. The 60th anniversary of Gagarin's flight will be in 2021. |
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