Over the country blared the solemn music. Soviet radio hailed the morning sun majestic, thrilling melody of patriotic songs, "Wide is my native land." Then sounded a concise message, has done away with the age-old isolation of humanity to their home planet: April 12, 1961 in the Soviet Union put into orbit around the Earth the world's first spaceship-satellite "East" with a man on board. "
Country - from Leningrad to Petropavlovsk - held its breath. Tram and bus stops so that passengers could listen to the message: it was broadcast through loudspeakers in the squares. The workers turned off the machines ran out of the saleswoman behind the counter. Pupils have forgotten the lessons. High, high above them, their compatriot, a Soviet citizen, raced among the stars around the Earth at a speed of 18,000 miles per hour - rushed straight into the story, since he became the first man to go into space.
On the radio reported the name of "astronaut": Yuri Gagarin, 27 years, Major. According to official figures of the East "was launched from launch pad (its location is not disclosed) at exactly 9:07 am Moscow time. Periodically, the air coming out briefly ballots: at 9:22 am Gagarin, while over South America, said: "The flight is normal, I feel good." At 10:15 he again contacted the Earth is already over Africa: "The flight is going well, the state of weightlessness, bear right." At 11:10 it was reported that at 10:25 Gagarin completed circled the globe and on the ship "was included retropropulsion. Began a very risky stage of the flight: "East" - his nose incandescent atmospheric entry - with great speed ran to the ground. All Russia waited with excitement: what's next. Public radio station held a break, pumping voltage. Only at 12:25 announcer proudly announced: "At 10:55 Cosmonaut Gagarin safely returned to the sacred ground of our homeland - the Land of Soviets".
In the air fly hats. Russian screamed with delight, hugged, and fled to call friends. Celebrations wave rolled across the country - from factories to collective farms, and teeming with people from city streets to lonely hutorkam in the steppe. Newspapers blossomed with bright red headlines. Everywhere, people took to the streets with banners praising the cosmic victory of the Soviet Union. Even the launch of Sputnik did not cause the country is so violent delight.
The world will never be the same
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Their enthusiasm is easy to understand. Yuri Gagarin took place at an unprecedented altitude (188 miles) and with unprecedented speed (18000 miles per hour), but this incredible statistic pales before the promises of this event. The age-old dream of mankind of space travel come true.
"East" - not impersonal, cold, empty area of unmanned satellite. He made the ordinary man in a black sky, and with him in the flight set off the imagination of all mankind. Scientists with the newfound confidence talking about completely new technological developments that could drastically change our world: satellites with the men on board to monitor the weather (and perhaps control over it) controls the movement of ships and aircraft, space stations, repeaters, "Space Hospitals' allowing to heal disease, not treatable in the world. Before his mind's eye the military is already there kreysiruyuschie orbiting space fleets bristling with giant nuclear missiles capable of destroying the country lying at the bottom.
All this was discussed before, but after Gagarin's flight, such things seem no longer a fantasy, a thing tomorrow. Actually, the practical achievement of the first man in space was that he flew there and stayed alive, but a world in which returned a pioneer, will never be the same.
Good Russian face
Soviet authorities as a rule give the bare minimum of information about the its space program, but last week all the mechanisms of the state worked out to make the flight of Gagarin is in personal triumph - and, paradoxically, it's all quite reminiscent of advertising "capitalist" wing. Drawn up a petition calling to rename one of the squares of Moscow to mark the first astronaut. Gagarin had already named the glacier. Printer print prearranged postage stamps with his portrait. Reporters, sleeves rolled up, trying to tell his compatriots as much information about the national hero. One journalist wrote a crowded feeling that Gagarin's "good Russian face with wide-set eyes." His colleague, interviewed shortly after the first astronaut landing was so delighted with the new idol that went even further: "His eyes sparkled, as if they still reflect the light of the stars." All radio stations broadcast recorded telephone conversation between Gagarin (countrymen immediately dubbed it "Gaga") and Premier Khrushchev, vacationing on the Black Sea:
Khrushchev: How did you feel during the flight?
Gagarin: I felt good. The flight was very successful, the whole apparatus spacecraft worked well. During the flight, I saw the earth from a great height. Were seen the sea, mountains, cities, rivers, forests.
Khrushchev: "You can say what you feel good?
Gagarin: You were right, Nikita Sergeyevich. I felt like a spaceship well as at home.
Khrushchev: "His deed you have done himself immortal man, because you're the first people penetrated into space.
Gagarin: Suppose that all countries now catching up with us!
Khrushchev: "That's right! Let the capitalist countries are catching up with our country, paving the way into space.
"A model scout"
In light of this it is not surprising that the official biography of Gagarin's sounds like it specially composed for the occasion. Details submitted to the thirsty world perfect portrait of the Soviet "new man" - a rough analogue of a model American scout from one of Iowa. Yuri was born in a collective farm village near the town of Gzhatsk, 100 miles west of Moscow. The local school, he was the best pupil and after the sixth grade Yuri was sent to a vocational school in a suburb of Moscow. There he received his degree molder-caster, but the profession has never worked: academic success enabled Gagarin to enter the "Industrial College" in Saratov.
In Saratov the flying club, he learned to fly, and was admitted to the Orenburg Military Aviation School. In 1957 he graduated from college with honors and at the same time he married a pretty graduate Medical Institute, Valentina Ivanovna. They have two daughters: Helen and two-year-Gal (she was only a month). This way of life looks so pretty, proper and "bourgeois," that the Russian White emigres scattered throughout the life of South America to Tyrone (Pennsylvania) remembered that in tsarist Russia was a princely family and Gagarin said Yuri - one of his representatives. However, the assumption of his noble origin seems doubtful.
Reporters trying to build up the meat on the bones of official information, taken from Valentina Gagarina interview in her one-bedroom apartment near Moscow. There was nowhere apple fall from worried neighbors, and even as journalists arrived, on the radio message: her husband is doing well. Valentine turned off the receiver and wiped away tears: the eldest daughter, meanwhile, calmly gnawed apple. Valentine explained that he knew nothing about the upcoming flight, and that the husband is the rank of major, first heard on the radio. She knew that Yuri some important task, but that he was preparing to go into space, had no idea: "He was afraid of upsetting me because I was expecting a child."
Now with the mysteries gone. Every time, including radio, Valentine hears the voice of the husband or the triumphant reports of his exploits. Special editions of newspapers, too, are devoted to him. One after another they reprint his story: human testimony, the first in space.
Blue belt
"Since the ship-satellite can be seen, of course, worse than an airplane, but still very, very well, - said" Gaga ". - It was noticeable bulge, the roundness of the Earth. Picture of the horizon is very original and very beautiful. You can see the extraordinary brilliance of the transition from the bright Earth's surface to a completely black sky where the stars. This transition is very thin, as if the film-belt surrounding the Earth. She is gentle-blue. "
Asked about the first experience after returning to Earth, he replied: "It's hard to put into words feelings that engulfed me when I stepped onto Soviet soil. Firstly I was pleased to have successfully fulfilled the task. In general, all my feelings can be summed up in one word: joy. When coming down, then sang a song: Motherland hears, the Motherland knows ...».
According to Gagarin, when the ship went into orbit, and there was weightlessness, "everything has become easier to do. Legs and arms do not weigh things floating around the cabin. And I have not sat in a chair, as before, and hung in the air. During a state of weightlessness, I ate and drank, and everything happened just as we do on Earth. I worked in the same state, writing, recording their observations. The handwriting is the same, although the hand and weighs nothing. Only notebook to be kept, but it uplyvet out of hand. Worked on communication through various channels, enjoyed a telegraph key.
"I have not seen the moon - he went on. - The sun is shining in the space of a few tens of times brighter than we have on Earth. Stars are visible very well: they are bright and clear. The whole picture of the sky looks much more contrast than the earth. " Day side of Earth, he said, was seen very well, he made the coast of continents, islands, major rivers, large reservoirs, the terrain. One flew over Soviet territory, Gagarin could clearly see the big squares of farm fields, and even could not understand, "where arable land, and where the prairie."
For scientists, these impressions came as no surprise. At all, as reported by the first astronaut to specify the data obtained by satellite instruments, or theoretical calculations. Blue belt ", which saw Gagarin - this is the sky that we see with the naked eye: the atmosphere scatters the blue part of the spectrum of sunlight. Nevertheless, told them the details fascinate its freshness: they - eyewitness evidence firsthand. These are the words a traveler who has visited in an unknown, and let them add little to our knowledge of them comes the light of authenticity. "Gaga" been there, I had not seen anyone.
Soft landing
In the evening the first day, full of glee, Gagarin was still in some kind of database, whose whereabouts are unknown, passing a thorough medical examination and, obviously, answering questions from experts. But whatever may have learned from him luminaries of Soviet space science, they do not add to the story Gagarin almost no details. Were made public only the bare statistics on the flight: it lasted 108 minutes, of which 89 minutes spent actually astronaut in orbit, and the rest of the time spent on the rise and decline. Academician Yevgeny Fyodorov - one of the architects of the Soviet space program - outlined the landing craft. It was carried out by stopping the propulsion system, retard the movement of "East" and to ensure its reduction to the zone of inhibition "in the denser layers of the atmosphere. There's a ship warmed by friction and experienced huge congestion, but the effects of inhibition were evenly distributed along the path length of a few thousand miles. "At the height of several tens of kilometers [1 mile=0.62 miles] above the ground - said Fedorov - the rate of the spacecraft is reduced to a few hundred feet [1 meter=1.094 yards]per second. He roared through the air, rushing to a pre-selected landing site. Parachutes open, and the speed is reduced to a few meters per second. "
From the explanation Fedorova, we can conclude that the astronaut landed inside the descent module, but according to other sources in Russia, Major Gagarin was bailed out when the capsule was still above the ground. Scientist Nikolai Gurovsky, in particular, said: "The astronaut gently down on the lawn next to the field. He landed on his feet, not even stumbled and went to the people who saw him. "
Mad at risk?
Although only the incorrigible skeptics doubt that the flight had taken place in general, every report of this event only adds to controversy. But when reporters viewed the message prior to the flight, came to light some more interesting things. So, until April 12 in Moscow for several days, rumors circulated that is about to take place space launch vehicle with a man aboard. Shortly before the start of the "East" Moscow correspondent of the British Communist Daily Worker had telegraphed the editors that a Soviet cosmonaut - the son of famous aircraft - flew around the earth three times and suffered serious injuries when landing. The London Daily Sketch reported that his name is Gennady Mikhaylov. The Soviet authorities immediately issued a denial. However, rumors continued to spread, and both newspapers insist on their versions.
In short, by the time when the official announcement was made about the flight of Gagarin, Soviet citizens had already been "prepared". Tension has risen sharply because of the seemingly reckless courage shown by the authorities: they released a fact start when the "East" was still in orbit, and ahead was the most difficult stage - the return of the ship. If at the last minute there was any failure, Gagarin would have been doomed to slow death in space in his ship, or burned during the descent in the atmosphere. Just so ended a few trial runs without people on board.
Did the Soviets decided to so recklessly risk his prestige? Most foreign observers believe it is not. It is likely, Major Gagarin traveled in orbit and returned safely before they sounded like the first message on startup. There are other, minor mysteries associated with flying, "the East". For example, according to the official version, Gagarin was released on bond after only 15 minutes after launch, at which point he was already over South America. However, from a prospective launch site separates the continent, almost half of the globe. In addition, a conference on space exploration in Florence 66-year old academician Anatoly Blagonravov - even in Czarist Russia, he engaged in the development of artillery systems, and today is a frequent speaker on space issues - asked the question: how Gagarin watching the Earth from orbit. He replied that he did it "on the radio." This statement suggests that the "East" had no windows, could not cause of U.S. experts is nothing but a smile: they noted that even in our lander, "Mercury" is the portholes of a durable heat-resistant material.
Lush meeting
It seems that the official Moscow these problems did not care. Today, every missile launch - not just a scientific experiment, but a propaganda move. This time, however, even poorly organized and suffers from inaccurate propaganda "support" does not blurry impression of great scientific and technological breakthroughs. Already one day after Gagarin's flight, Moscow greeted as a hero. Red Square, where the most solemn event, waiting for him in festive attire. At high silver flagpoles flying banners, trams, buses, cars, lampposts and facades were decorated with red calico. All over the city hung the portraits of the astronaut, on newsstands already sold his biography. At all dvadtsatimilnom way from Vnukovo airport to the center of a crowd of people and a cordon was put up.
Gagarin flew in turboprop airliner with an escort of fighters. In addition to parents and wife, Valentina, it met all the top Soviet leadership. Premier Khrushchev was a bear grabbed his arms and kissed him hard, and on this background, the warm embrace of Valentina looked modest. One after the other high chiefs welcomed the astronaut. Then the cavalcade of cars decorated with flowers slowly walked to Red Square, towards the artillery salute of 20 guns.
At the mausoleum of Lenin and Stalin - the holy of holies of the Communist Moscow - Gagarin was standing together with members of the Presidium of the Central Committee: the highest authority in the USSR. Khrushchev delivered a long speech, comparing it to Columbus, announced the awarding Gagarin, Hero of the Soviet Union and awarding him the title of "Pilot-Cosmonaut of the USSR." Newly Major - he looked well done in front, with a brand-new, steel-colored form of the Air Force - behaved with admirable serenity, with no hesitation saying all the right words. He thanked the Party, government and Premier Khrushchev for the high confidence in a prime Soviet pilot: "When we were at the start of outer space, I thought about our Leninist Party of our socialist motherland" .*
The next day, the history of flight began to take more and more luster. Russian newspapers reported that the night before the start of Gagarin sleep sleeping baby in the capsule of the "East", he climbed with such a calm, as if set off on a fishing trip. At a press conference - it was held in the green with a white colonnaded building of the Moscow House of Scientists - Gagarin and a group of experts, which included the President of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR Alexander N. Nesmeyanov, was not informed about anything new, but with the same enthusiasm once again talked about the flight. In addition, they promised that soon will be unveiled additional scientific information about this event. A replica of that in American newspapers have suggested his princely origin, the astronaut replied briefly: "I must not disappoint them."
Full spiral
Americans, long after Russia the right to win this impressive victory in the cosmos, were nevertheless confused. And our program, "Mercury", within which are still "notified" carrier rocket, capable to send a man into suborbital flight - a short "jump" into space, far less impressive than a full orbit around the Earth, made "the East" - now is particularly modest.
Signs that the Russian are preparing for something big, proliferated for several weeks now and have been reported in a timely manner. The U.S. Navy discovered in the Pacific Ocean Soviet ships tracking the spacecraft, and in the South Atlantic - trawlers, probably equipped with repeater stations. Rumors spread by the Soviet Union, also quickly reached Washington. In most cases, they found it "ducks", but the day before the launch of the U.S. intelligence authorities of the country sent an urgent message: Something is being prepared. And although the East was launched at 1:07 am Washington time, and the first message on Soviet radio was given at 2 o'clock in the morning, as early as 1:30 am Presidential Adviser on Science Jerome Wiesner (Jerome Wiesner) received a message from the Pentagon: a large Russian "bird" flew.
"Come on, guys"
When Washington realized that the propaganda battle lost, all the right people uttered all befitting of the word. President Kennedy congratulated the Russian. Joined him and the head of NASA's James Webb (James Webb). But these courtesies hidden sadness, shame and even anger. America is once again ahead in space.
At Cape Canaveral, U.S. astronauts are still waiting in the wings to make a suborbital flight in Mercury. But now it seems too small, empty and useless undertaking. Participants in the program difficult to hide the disappointment. All of them worked at a furious pace, some people just keeps on his legs from fatigue, and finally, they do not feel enough support from his country. "We could start there man - indignantly said one of them. - We could do it a month before the Russian, though two years ago at the top just decided to expedite the program. " Another echoed him: "We all dreamed that someone said:" Okay, let guys do. " The victory was taken from us the decisions taken at the top. If "Santa Maria" Columbus as well prepared for the voyage, she would never have left port. "
One can understand the resentment of these people, but they are only partly right. U.S. defeat in space due to multiple solutions at the highest level, adopted long ago. Perhaps the greatest challenge of our space program - the absence of sufficiently powerful and reliable engine for the first-stage booster. At Russian thrust of such engines exceed 800,000 pounds. They were designed for intercontinental ballistic missiles with a heavy nuclear warheads. American Motors weaker in power, as our physicists, nuclear engineers rightly felt that they could develop warheads with relatively small weight, which do not need huge rockets for delivery to the target.
It is the lack of a powerful engine is related to many well-known to all woes of Americans. All that we are launching into space, including habitable capsule Mercury, should be as easy. As a result of its construction and equipment, by definition, does not possess a high strength - they are designed to operate at full capacity. In Russian there is a solid stock of the payload, so they can build a ship from a relatively heavy, powerful and reliable elements. They even allow themselves the luxury equipment of the "East" parallel electrical circuits (if one fails, it is replaced with another). Many achievements in the Russian space exploration, including the creation of precise control systems, can be attributed to a powerful "muscles" of their engines.
Star of the West
Nevertheless, many Americans who work in the space program, these comforting excuses begin to pall. They blame the lack of imagination on the part of the American leadership, manifested for a long time. Designer Werner von Braun, while still working in Germany in the first half of the forties, counted the possibility of launching satellites and unequivocally stated: it will be of tremendous propaganda value. Arriving in the United States in 1945, he offered to shake the world "American star, rising in the West." American space exploration enthusiasts picked up his call, but the government does not hurry to support this idea.
Russian also realized what an opportunity in front of them opened, and with heavy rockets scored a series triumph in space. Now America is becoming harder to overtake them. However, despite all the destruction, the U.S. can and will continue to be serious scientific exploration of outer space. What we do for many years, getting through small, numerous and filled with first-class equipment of spacecraft more knowledge than with their Russian giants. These achievements have received due recognition of scientists and highly enriched common human reservoir of knowledge, but the general public worldwide discovery related to energy cosmic rays, or the number of electrons in the near-Earth space is left untouched. Only an impressive and extremely difficult to implement successful flyby of the moon like a ship with a person on board may allow the United States to circumvent the Russian.
Equipment or people?
In addition to the huge propaganda value, the special other results last Soviet mission had not. While in orbit, Major Gagarin could not see anything that would be of scientific interest, but a set of equipment, equal to his weight, would collect far more data. He did not even ran "east": all the buttons pressed on Earth.
But actually nothing other scientists, including Russian, from him and did not expect. In scientific circles it is believed that the first stages of space exploration equipment would bring more benefits than people - because people much weight are vulnerable, and requires tons of supplies and equipment for life support. Devices - smaller in size, weight, and arranged a "strong" people. They are able to withstand the terrible congestion, vibration, rotation, heat, cold and radiation. And most importantly they do not necessarily return to Earth intact. All data collected in space, instruments passed into the Control Center, and then silence - no recriminations and protests - are burned in the atmosphere. In addition, they can be delivered to the Moon or Mars, and they will work as long as the battery will not sit down.
For a long time people in space will be of little weight. But scientists, who can look beyond the immediate future, are manned flights without skepticism. They are convinced: the time will come when people need it - because of their ability to abstract thinking and improvisation. Instruments delivered to the Moon, are able to perform only those narrow tasks for which they were intended. They can look over the eyes of television cameras all space up close and gloomy horizon, feel the sensors' moonquake "may investigate the chemical content of samples of lunar soil. They are able to do virtually anything they want from the designers, except for one - it is reasonable to respond to unforeseen situations.
Neither set of the most advanced devices, for example, does not show interest in books with sheets of platinum-coated strangers to the writing, millions of years ago left in the lunar crater unknown alien race. In fact, nothing like on the moon, most likely not show up, but it can conceal other equally stunning surprises. Mars also has to be even richer secrets. There might find a hidden form of life, or their traces, which can not correctly identify any one device. No missions to Mars will not give a satisfactory result, while there will visit people.
Triumph of Humanity
Even if the deadly Soviet-American rivalry, which today is largely fueled and space research, stop, people will undoubtedly struggle to overcome the limits of their native planet. After all, eventually winning in space do not belong to specific countries. This is a scientific and technological achievements of mankind, the result of our desire to know the unknown.
Flight of the "East" - not only the accomplishment of the Russian science. He absorbed the ideas born in Britain, Germany, America, France and even China and ancient Egypt. It is recognized by Russian scientists themselves, and in the official circulation of the Central Committee said: "Victory in space exploration, we consider not only the achievements of our people, but of all mankind." Whatever resentment or felt last week, American scientists, they too are concerned to the Russian triumph.
Most scientists around the world believe that Major Gagarin and his loyal "East" opened the door, which is not close ever. Space exploration may be for some time to slow down or stop, but the human race is young, and she - cocky master of fertile planet. Many people will always dream to go on the path trodden by Major Gagarin, to see the same blue belt at the edge of the Earth. Someday - maybe in ten, hundred, maybe a thousand years - a huge interstellar spacecraft will carry people beyond the solar system. They learn useful if the Moon and planets for habitation. They will try anything to do with the poisonous atmosphere of Venus, so it was possible to breathe without a suit, or will be a new subspecies of human, capable of enjoying life on Venus in its current form. Maybe people will learn to live in the outer space, traveling through the solar system for mobile hand-made worlds. Human civilization of 7000 years, and in front of her endlessly long. But wherever I went to future explorers, no matter what they discovered in the black, cold expanse of space, they will always remember those two that were the first - "East" and Major Yuri Gagarin.
* The ceremony was broadcast live on European television through Eurovision. In the U.S. it showed on the film, delivered across the Atlantic on a jet plane
05.04.2011, 11:33
"Time" from the United States April 21, 1961
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