 Yuri
Alekseyevich Gagarin (March 9, 1934 - March 27, 1968), Hero of the Soviet Union,
was a Soviet cosmonaut who on April 12, 1961 became the first person in space
and the first person to orbit the Earth.
Early Life
Yuri Gagarin was born in a 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 honor. His parents worked on a collective farm. While
manual laborers 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 World War II. His two elder siblings were "taken away" to Germany,
apparently as conscripts, in 1943, and did not return until after the war. His
teachers described Gagarin as intelligent and hard-working, if occasionally
mischievous. His mathematics and science teacher flew in the Soviet Air Forces
during the war, which presumably made some substantial impression on young
Gagarin.
After starting an apprenticeship in a metalwork as a foundry man, Gagarin was
selected for further training at a high technical school in Saratov. 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 1955, 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
1957, after gaining his pilot's wings in a MiG-15. Post-graduation, he was
assigned to Luostari airbase in Murmansk Oblast, close to the Norwegian border,
where terrible weather made flying risky. As a full-grown man, Gagarin was 5 ft
2 in (1.57 m) tall, which was an advantage in the small Vostok cockpit.
Career in the Soviet Space Program
Selection and Training
In 1960, after an extensive search and selection process Yuri Gagarin was
selected with 19 other cosmonauts for the Soviet space program. Along with the
other prospective cosmonauts, he had been subjected to a punishing series of
experiments designed to test his physical and psychological endurance, as well
as being trained for the upcoming flight. Out of the twenty selected, the
eventual choices for the first launch were 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. Gagarin's
last-minute assignment, approved at the highest levels of the CPSU, 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. Soviet officials weighed other factors as well in selecting Yuri: his
appearance, his capacity to handle media attention, his Russian heritage and
even the name "Gagarin," which was also a family name associated with Tsarist
aristocracy.
Space Flight
On 12 April 1961, Gagarin became the first human to travel into space in Vostok
3KA-2 (Vostok 1). His call sign in this flight was Kedr (Cedar). During his
flight, Gagarin famously whistled the tune "The Motherland Hears, The Motherland
Knows". 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 Dmitri Shostakovich in 1951 (opus 86), with words by Yevgeniy
Dolmatovsky.
There are speculations in the media that 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. In a 2006 interview a close friend of Gagarin, colonel Valentin
Petrov, stated that Gagarin never said such words, and that the phrase
originated from Nikita Khrushchev's speech at the plenum of the Central
Committee of the CPSU, where the antireligious propaganda was discussed. In a
certain context Khrushchev said, "Gagarin flew into space, but didn't see any
God there". As Gagarin was a great people's favorite at the time, Khrushchev's
words were soon attributed to Gagarin for them to be more effective.
While in orbit Gagarin was promoted "in the field" from the lowly rank of Senior
Lieutenant to Major - and this was the rank at which TASS announced him in its
triumphant statement during the flight.
Gagarin being safely returned, Nikita Khrushchev rushed to his side and Gagarin
issued a statement praising the Communist Party of the Soviet Union as the
"organizer 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
with appearances in Italy, Germany, Canada, and Japan to promote the Soviet
achievement.
In 1962, he began serving as a deputy to the Supreme Soviet. He later returned
to "Star City", the cosmonaut facility, where he worked on designs for a
reusable spacecraft.
Death and Legacy
Gagarin then became deputy training director of Star City. At the same time, he
began to re-qualify as a fighter pilot. On March 27, 1968, he and his instructor
died in a MiG-15UTI on a routine training flight near Kirzhach. It is not
certain what caused the crash, but a 1986 inquest suggests that the turbulence
from a Su-11 'Fishpot-C' interceptor using its afterburners 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" Alexei Leonov recounts that he was flying a
helicopter in the same area 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 Su-15 'Flagon'), 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, hypothesizes
that a cabin vent was accidentally left open by the crew or the previous pilot,
thus leading to oxygen deprivation and leaving the crew incapable of controlling
the aircraft.
There were two commemorative coins issued in the Soviet Union to commemorate
20th and 30th anniversaries of his flight: 1 ruble coin (1981, copper-nickel)
and 3 ruble coin (1991, silver). In 2001, to commemorate the 40th anniversary of
Gagarin's flight, a series of four coins bearing his likeness was issued in
Russia: 2 ruble coin (copper-nickel), 3 ruble coin (silver), 10 ruble coin
(brass-copper, nickel), 100 ruble coin (silver).
Gagarin is buried next to Seregin in the walls of the Kremlin on Red Square. On
April 12, 2007, the Kremlin vetoed an investigation on the death of Gagarin.
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