The Mercury 7 astronauts: left to right, back row, Alan Shepard, Virgil “Gus” Grissom and L. Gordon Cooper; front row, Walter Schirra, Donald “Deke” Slayton, John Glenn and Scott Carpenter.
ASTRONAUTS RACE COSMONAUTS
Stunned by the early successes of the Russian space orbits, the United States urgently set up a task group with the express purpose of being the first nation to put a human in space. But the group of astronauts chosen for this mission—known as the Mercury 7—were to find themselves thwarted when Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin also claimed this prize for the Soviets, beating the American attempt by a mere three weeks.
The United States realized that a manned spaceflight was the next big step. Coming round at last to the importance of spaceflight, President Dwight D. Eisenhower had assigned the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) to develop and carry out manned spaceflights. Two months later, in July 1958, the NACA became the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). Within a week its director T. Keith Glennan approved plans for a manned launch, giving the responsibility to the Space Task Group based at the Langley Research Center in Virginia, headed by Robert Gilruth. There were already preliminary sketches of a small capsule that was jokingly said to have been designed to be worn, not flown. The initiative, later named Project Mercury, began on October 7, 1958. What was needed next were astronauts.
One of those selected, Alan Shepard was destined to narrowly miss becoming the first person in space.
Shepard: April 9, 1959, was one of the happiest days of my life. That was the day on which we all congregated officially as the US first astronaut group. We had been through a selection process, obviously, previous to that time. But that was the day we first showed up officially as the first astronauts in the United States.
They were called the Mercury 7, and they were: Scott Carpenter, Gordon Cooper, John Glenn, Virgil Grissom, Wally Schirra, Alan Shepard and Deke Slayton.
The Mercury 7 astronauts: left to right, back row, Alan Shepard, Virgil “Gus” Grissom and L. Gordon Cooper; front row, Walter Schirra, Donald “Deke” Slayton, John Glenn and Scott Carpenter.
Shepard: Glenn, of course, I had known before; Schirra I had known before because of our navy connections. So I knew there was a lot of talent there, and I knew that it was going to be a tough fight to win the prize. Well it was an interesting situation because, as I say, I was friendly with several of them. And on the other hand, realizing that I was now competing with these guys, so there was always a sense of caution I suppose—particularly talking about technical things. Now in the bar everything changed, but in talking about technical things there was always a sense of maybe a little bit of reservation, not being totally frank with each other, because there was this very strong sense of competition. There were seven guys competing for the first job, whatever that turned out to be. Seven guys going for that one job. So on the one hand there was a sense of friendliness and maybe some support but on the other hand, “Hey, I hope the rest of you guys are happy because I’m going to make the first flight.” I suspect my thoughts generally reflected those of the other chaps.
John Glenn, who would become the first American to orbit the Earth:
They made every measurement you can possibly make on the human body, all the usual things you’d think about, plus all the other things that would occur in any natural physical exam, and then things like, oh, cold water in your ear. You sit, and you have a syringe, and you put cold water in your ear for a period of time. This starts the fluids in your inner ear, in the semicircular canal, starts them circulating because of the temperature differential, starts them circulating, and so you get the same effect as though you’d been spun up on a chair or something like that until you are extremely dizzy, and you had nystagmus, as it’s called, your eyes want to drift off. You can’t keep them focused on a spot. And then they would measure how long it took for us to recover from that. There was supposed to be some correlation to something, whatever it was. They had a lot of tests like that.
The Mercury 7 were paraded before the press and heralded by the American public as heroes. Viewed from today’s perspective the press conference was a strange event. John Glenn did most of the talking, while Alan Shepard was perhaps the wittiest. Several of them smoked during the interviews and all, when asked, gave their home addresses, clearly something that would not happen today. A few weeks after being chosen they moved to Langley Field, Virginia, where they were shown the prototype of their spacecraft:
Shepard: It didn’t look very much like an airplane, but if you were going to put a pilot in it, it was going to have to fly somehow like an airplane, and when you have a strange new machine, then you go to the test pilots. That’s what they were trained to do, and that what’s they had been doing.
At first the capsule did not have windows; engineers had thought them unnecessary since they would compromise its structural strength. The astronauts would have none of it. They insisted on windows and on something to do. Like their Soviet counterparts, the designers wanted almost everything to be automatic, with the astronaut acting as a passenger and doing little except in an emergency. The future space travelers were scathing, calling this method of flying “chimp mode.”
No one knew how the human body would react under conditions of zero gravity (zero G). Some thought there would be only small effects, while others took the view that in zero G an astronaut might not be able to breathe or swallow properly and could become hopelessly disorientated.
Shepard: This is a generalization, but it’s something which I’d been doing for many, many years as a navy pilot, as a carrier pilot; and believe me, it’s a lot harder to land a jet on an aircraft carrier than it is to land a Lunar Module on the Moon. That’s a piece of cake, that Moon deal! And here you had, yes, a new environment, but you know, for fighter pilots who fly upside-down a lot of the time, zero gravity wasn’t that big a deal.
Having lost the first lap in the space race to the Soviet Union, many in the United States still believed that they could win the race to put a person in space, but first there was the difficult decision to be made—who would that person be? All of the Mercury 7 were in with a chance. Shepard remembers the day the choice was made:
We had been in training for about 20 months or so, toward the end of 1960, early 1961, when we all intuitively felt that Bob Gilruth had to make a decision as to who was going to make the first flight. And, when we received word that Bob wanted to see us at 5:00 in the afternoon one day in our office, we sort of felt that perhaps he had decided. There were seven of us then in one office. We had seven desks around in the hangar at Langley Field. Bob walked in, closed the door, and was very matter-of-fact as he said: “Well, you know we’ve got to decide who’s going to make the first flight, and I don’t want to pinpoint publicly at this stage one individual. Within the organization I want everyone to know that we will designate the first flight and the second flight and the backup pilot, but beyond that we won’t make any public decisions. So, Shepard gets the first flight, Grissom gets the second flight, and Glenn is the backup for both of these two suborbital missions. Any questions?” Absolute silence. He said: “Thank you very much. Good luck,” turned around, and left the room. Well, there I am looking at six faces looking at me and feeling, of course, totally elated that I had won the competition. But yet almost immediately afterwards feeling sorry for my buddies, because there they were. I mean, they were trying just as hard as I was and it was a very poignant moment because they all came over, shook my hand, and pretty soon I was the only guy left in the room.
The publicity and high expectations aroused by the Mercury 7 had not gone unnoticed in the USSR. Worried that they would not maintain their apparent lead, Khrushchev called a meeting of all the key people in the Soviet space effort, saying:
Your affairs are not well. You should quickly aim for space. There are strong levels of work in the USA and they’ll be able to outstrip us.
Soon, representatives of the military and the Academy of Sciences met to talk about selecting the first cosmonaut. Where should they look for candidates? The air force, the navy and even racing drivers were briefly considered, but the air force insisted they had to be pilots. So the search began.
Only men were to be considered. They had to be between 25 and 30 years of age, no taller than 1.70 to 1.75 meters (5.6 to 5.7 ft.), and with a weight of no more than 70 to 72 kilograms (154 to 159 lbs.) so that they could fit into the small capsule being designed. Two air force doctors were appointed to run the selection process, and teams were sent to air force bases in the western Soviet Union to look for candidates. Those who passed the initial selection were interviewed, but none was aware of the true nature of the mission, which was described as “special flights.” Just over 200 passed this early screening, and they were then sent in groups of 20 for further testing at the Central Scientific Research Aviation Hospital in Moscow.
Testing under the “Theme No. 6” program involved spinning the pilot in a stationary seat to test the vestibular system (a sensory mechanism involved in balance and spatial orientation) and subjecting him to low pressure and increased gravity in a centrifuge. At the end of 1959 the number of candidates had been narrowed down to 20, and these were sent back to their units to await further orders. Of the group, five were not between the ages of 25 to 30, but this condition was waived because of their strong performances. In the end, none of those selected was a test pilot. One of them, Vladimir Komarov, had some experience as a test engineer flying new aircraft, but the most experienced pilot among them, Pavel Belyayev, had accrued only 900 hours of flying time. Others, such as Yuri Gagarin, had flown only 230 hours.
Twelve of the 20 cosmonaut candidates undertook final medical tests at the Central Scientific Research Aviation Hospital. Later, Gagarin recalled having seven eye tests as well as a series of mathematical tests during which a voice whispered into his headphones giving him the wrong answers. His heart was the focus of the tests. “We were tested from top to toe,” he said. The training was divided between academic disciplines and physical fitness. They attended classes covering rockets, navigation, radio communications, geophysics and astronomy. Within a few weeks each candidate had made 40 to 50 parachute jumps. One of the USSR’s top test pilots, Mark Gallay, supervised their aircraft training. Under his direction they flew parabolic trajectories to simulate weightlessness for periods up to 30 seconds in specially equipped aircraft. Soon they all moved about 25 miles (40 km) northeast to a new suburb of Moscow, which was renamed Zelenyy, meaning “Green.” Today it is better known by a more recent designation—Zvezdny Gorodok, or “Star City.”
Crude spacecraft simulators were installed at the new training base, and because it was believed to be inefficient to train all 20 on one simulator, a choice needed to be made. A group of six would undergo accelerated training, and from them the selection of the first cosmonaut would be made. One of them—Gagarin, Kartashov, Nikolayev, Popovich, Titov or Varlamov—would be the first person in space, or so they hoped. Korolev visited the center for the first time in June 1960. The cosmonauts had only learned of his existence a few months earlier, and even then he was only called the “chief designer.” He carried with him diagrams of the space capsule. Korolev had settled on a simple yet remarkable design concept for the first spacecraft: it was to be spherical, with one side heavier than the other. The heavier side would be fitted with a heat shield. Its extra weight meant that this side would automatically turn and face forward on reentry, shielding the craft from the searing heat of friction as it entered the Earth’s atmosphere. Soon it was named Vostok or “East.”
The US watched the Russian activities as closely as possible. Radio listening stations in Turkey were alerted that something was going on. In April a U-2 spy plane of the CIA (Central Intelligence Agency) took off from Peshawar Airport and flew over the Semipalatinsk test site, the air defense forces near Saryshagan, and then the Baikonur complex.
In the USSR there was considerable pressure to accelerate the schedule, primarily because of the stream of news about Project Mercury. By the early summer of 1960, NASA officials were expecting to fly the first suborbital piloted Mercury craft early in 1961. Korolev was determined that the first piloted Vostok craft would be in orbit before the Americans’ first launch. The deadline was specified in an official document from the Soviet government dated June 4, 1960, and entitled “On a Plan for the Mastery of Cosmic Space”; all testing for a piloted Vostok flight was to be completed by December 1960.
In early summer the Vostok capsule was transported to Baikonur for a test launch. It was not fitted with a heat shield or an ejection seat, as the aim was only to test its basic elements—in particular the complex but essential Chayka orientation system that would orientate the spacecraft correctly for reentry. Although this test capsule would burn up on reentry, telemetry data would indicate whether or not it had been properly aligned before it happened. As soon as it reached orbit, the State Commission issued a communiqué for the Soviet press. But first there was an issue over what to call the vehicle. Korolev said: “There are sea ships, river ships, air ships, and now there’ll be space ships!” Although the term “space ship” was used in the official TASS news agency report for the first time, there was no indication that the mission had any relevance to a manned spaceflight. But officials in the US knew what it implied. The unmanned Vostok test versions were launched from Baikonur into a suborbital trajectory to splash down in the Pacific Ocean. As the Soviet navy plucked the capsules out of the sea, the US navy watched from close by.
But all did not go well with the first nonmanned versions of the capsule. On reentry, the most critical part of the flight, the retrorocket fired on time but because the spacecraft was pointing in the wrong direction it went into a higher orbit, where it stayed for more than five years before coming back to Earth. The problem was tracked down to a faulty sensor, which was removed from the version of the Vostok that was to carry a cosmonaut.
Accordingly, a second test Vostok was prepared, this time with two dogs, Chayka and Lisichka, on board. They were launched in July 1960, but the mission immediately ran into serious problems. Some 20 seconds after launch the rocket began to veer sideways. One of the strap-on engines exploded. The emergency escape rockets on top of the capsule were fired to get the “crew” up into the air and away from the launch pad as quickly as possible, but it was already too late; the dogs were dead.
Undaunted, Korolev ordered the next Vostok test mission to carry two more dogs, Belka and Strelka, along with a biological cargo including mice, rats, insects, plants, fungi, cultures, seeds of corn, wheat, peas, onions, microbes, strips of human skin and other specimens. Lifting off on August 19 it reached orbit, but the television pictures relayed back were poor. At first, the dogs appeared still, later they became more animated, but their movements were odd and they were clearly ill. Belka squirmed and vomited. Was it possible that living things could not stand more than a single orbit in space? They parachuted into the Orsk region in Kazakhstan after a one-day, two-hour spaceflight, making Belka and Strelka the first living beings to be recovered from orbit. The spacecraft itself was only the second object retrieved from orbit, the American Discoverer 13 having preempted it by nine days.
It was recommended that one or two further Vostok test flights be carried out in October–November 1960, followed by two automated missions of the Vostok flight configuration in November–December 1960. Korolev’s plan was that by December the cosmonauts would be ready for a manned flight later that month, in time to beat a Mercury launch. Then disaster struck.
In his Moscow office, Korolev received a late-night call from the Baikonur complex on a secure telephone line informing him that there had been a major accident, the catastrophic nature of which only became clear as more information arrived throughout the night. It involved a rocket designed not by Korolev, but by his rival, Mikhail Yangel.
Yangel’s group was competing with Korolev to build a new generation of ballistic missiles, so he had brought his first missile, the R-16, to Baikonur in mid-October for its maiden launch. After the relative failure of Korolev’s R-7 rocket (now being modified to carry the first cosmonaut) as an operational ICBM, there was a lot of pressure to bring the technically superior R-16 to operational status. It would finally justify Premier Khrushchev’s bluster and bragging about Soviet rocket might. Just days before the planned launch, in a speech at the United Nations, he boasted that strategic missiles were being produced in the USSR “like sausages from a machine,” even though this was not true. Many important officials were at Baikonur to witness the first R-16 launch, among them Strategic Missile Forces Commander-in-Chief Nedelin, who chaired the State Commission for the R-16.
There had been problems with the highly toxic propellants prior to launch, the worst of which involved fueling procedures. These not only caused great consternation but also resulted in a whole day being lost due to a leak being discovered. On the orders of the State Commission, all repairs to the missile were to be carried out when it was fully fueled—a very dangerous situation. After they were completed, and just 30 minutes before the launch on October 24, there were approximately 200 officers, engineers and soldiers near the launch pad, including Marshal Nedelin, who scoffed at suggestions that he leave the area, saying: “What’s there to be afraid of? Am I not an officer?” Yangel had gone into a bunker to smoke a last cigarette before launch. It saved his life.
An inquiry later determined that the second stage rockets of the R-16 ignited due to a control system failure. The flames cut into the first-stage fuel tanks beneath, which then exploded. Automatically activated cinema cameras filmed the explosion. People near the rocket were instantly incinerated, while those further away were burned to death or were poisoned by the toxic gases. When the engines fired, most of the personnel ran to the perimeter but were trapped by the security fence and then engulfed in the fireball of burning fuel. Deputy Chairman of the State Committee of Defense Technology, Lev Grishin, who had been standing next to Nedelin, ran across the molten tarmac and jumped onto a ramp from a height of 3.5 meters (11.5 ft.), breaking both legs in the process and dying later of burns. As usual the incident was kept secret and Marshal Nedelin was said to have died in an aircraft accident, a deception the Soviets maintained until early 1989. About 130 people perished as a result of the explosion, many of whom were identified only by medals on their jackets or rings on their fingers.
Keen to forget the accident, the authorities granted Korolev permission to launch the fourth and fifth in the Vostok test spacecraft series. The first was launched without incident on December 1, 1960, into an orbit exactly mimicking the one planned at the time for a manned mission. Aboard were two dogs, Pchelka and Mushka. After about 24 hours the main engine fired to begin reentry, but it fired for a shorter period than planned and the indications were that the landing would overshoot Soviet territory. To prevent it from falling into the wrong hands a self-destruct system operated, blowing up the spacecraft and its passengers. Soon the fifth Vostok test spacecraft, carrying the dogs Kometa and Shutka, was sent on its way, but the third-stage engine prematurely cut off at 425 seconds. The emergency escape system went into operation, and the payload reached an altitude of 133 miles (214 km) and landed about 2175 miles (3500 km) downrange in the region of the Podkamennaya Tunguska river, close to the impact point of the 1908 Tunguska meteorite. There had been two consecutive failures of Vostok test flights and it was not possible to launch a cosmonaut by February 1961. Would the Americans, with their Mercury capsule, win after all?
In January 1961 the commission recommended the following order for flights: Gagarin, Titov, Nelyubov, Nikolayev, Bykovsky, Popovich. Gagarin was the favorite. One engineer said of him: “He would never try to ingratiate himself, nor was he ever insolent. He was born with an innate sense of tact.” Earlier the Medical Commission had described his personality:
Modest, embarrasses when his humor gets a little too racy: high degree of intellectual development; 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?
Indeed, when the cosmonauts carried out an informal survey to choose who they would like to fly first, all but three named Gagarin. Also in the running for the first flight was 25-year-old Gherman Titov, who had served as a pilot in the Leningrad region. He struck many as being the most well-read of the finalists, liable to quote Pushkin or refer to Prokofiev. The last of the top three, 26-year-old Grigori Nelyubov, was perhaps the most talented and qualified of the group. He had influential supporters but was extremely outspoken. The cosmonauts were working hard, spending long periods away from home, and when they were home they could not talk about what they did. Gagarin’s wife Valya later said that if she ever asked him what he was training for he would dismiss it with a joke. Once, when Yuri brought some of his cosmonaut friends home, she heard them saying that soon it would either be Yuri or Gherman.
In January and February 1961, preparations for the launches of the remaining two Vostok test missions progressed. Each was identical to the actual piloted Vostok, but would carry a single dog into orbit and a life-sized mannequin would be strapped into the main ejection seat. The mission was to last a single orbit, the same as planned for the first human flight. Khrushchev announced on March 14 during an interview:
The time is not far off when the first space ship with a man on board will soar into space.
The first human-rated Vostok spacecraft lifted off successfully just days later, carrying the dog Chernushka together with mice, guinea pigs, reptiles, seeds, blood samples, cancer cells and bacteria. The ejection seat was taken up by a life-sized mannequin (called Ivan Ivanovich) dressed in a Sokol spacesuit. The main purpose was to test radio communications with the capsule; however, they knew the Americans would be listening. So it was decided to tape a popular Russian choir, then, if the Americans heard it they would not know it was a recording and not think it was a real human voice. The successful mission had lasted only one hour and 46 minutes. The way was now open for a manned flight.
The six key cosmonauts flew to the Baikonur complex on March 17 to witness the prelaunch operations of the final test, which went well. All reentry procedures were conducted without any problems. Shortly afterward a press conference was held in Moscow that relayed little information except that a successful test flight had occurred. In the audience were foreign journalists as well as, in the front row, Gagarin, Titov and the other cosmonauts, but of course none of the press knew that one of them would fly in space in just a few days.
Knowing that the time was near, Korolev, in a touching move, invited some of the original GIRD veterans to his offices just a month before the first manned launch. Many of them had not seen him for many years. Over vodka they spoke of the old times and their dreams of space travel. His guests knew nothing of his secret work, but when they had reminisced a while he ushered them into a nearby workshop. There, in the corner, was the polished silver cockpit of the Vostok spacecraft. As they beheld it, knowing that the age of manned spaceflight was about to dawn, some of them wept for joy.
Things were moving quickly. Leaving for Baikonur for the last time before the manned flight, the cosmonauts were ordered to tell their spouses that the launch was set for April 14, three days later than actually intended, so they would not worry as much. But who was to be the first spaceman—cosmonaut number one?
The State Commission had addressed the question at a meeting on April 8. Both Gagarin and Titov had performed without fault, with Gagarin ahead in the January examinations. Nikolai Kamanin, the air force’s representative in the space program, wrote in his journal:
Both are excellent candidates, but in the last few days I hear more and more people speak out in favor of Titov and my personal confidence in him is growing, too. The only thing that keeps me from picking Titov is the need to have the stronger person for a second one-day flight.
Photographs and details of Gagarin and Titov were sent to the Central Committee. Khrushchev replied: “Both are excellent. Let them decide for themselves.” Finally Kamanin, perhaps with the more arduous second flight in mind, nominated Gagarin as the primary pilot and Titov as his backup for the first flight, whose launch date was set as April 11 or 12. Later Kamanin invited Gagarin and Titov to his office and told them that Gagarin was going to fly and that Titov would serve as his backup. Years later, when asked how he felt, Titov said it had been unpleasant. He had wanted to be the first, but somehow could see why they made the choice they had: “Yuri turned out to be the person that everyone loved. Me, they couldn’t love. I’m not lovable.”
In the early morning hours of April 11 the huge doors of the main assembly building at Baikonur rolled open to reveal the R-7 booster positioned on its side on a converted railway carriage. Very slowly it moved out into the dawn air. Alongside, and watching every movement, strode a nervous Sergei Korolev. He walked around the rocket many times on its 2.5-mile (4-km) journey to the launch pad. This was his “child.” This was history. In a couple of hours it reached the pad and was levered into an upright position with an access gantry positioned alongside. Korolev would not leave it until it left the Earth. Early in the afternoon Gagarin and Titov arrived for a last-minute rehearsal. Korolev was on the point of nervous and physical exhaustion. More than once that afternoon he had to be helped to a chair for a rest. Meanwhile, an army general at a base on the outskirts of Saratov received a phone call from the Kremlin telling him to organize the recovery of the world’s first spaceman, who would be landing in his region tomorrow.
The night before launch Gagarin and Titov were assigned to a cottage near the pad area, which had previously been used by Marshal Nedelin. After a light meal they were in bed by 7:30 pm. Korolev checked on them periodically, being unable to sleep himself. Medical sensors were attached to both cosmonauts to monitor their vital systems, and strain gauges were attached to their mattresses to see how well they slept. The official history states that they both had a good night, but that is not true. Gagarin later said that he did not sleep a wink but worked hard to stay perfectly still lest the strain gauges on the bed indicated that he was restless and the mission be given over to Titov. Evidently Titov did the same. It was hardly the best preparation for the first manned spaceflight.
So many things were going through Korolev’s restless mind; so many failure modes. Among the many worries perhaps the most troubling was the prospect of the rocket’s third stage failing during the ascent to orbit, depositing the Vostok spacecraft in the ocean near Cape Horn on the southern tip of Africa, an area infamous for its constant storms. Korolev had insisted that there be a telemetry system in the launch bunker to confirm that the third stage had worked as planned. If the engine worked correctly, the telemetry would print out a series of “fives” on tape; but if it had failed, there would be a series of “twos.”
Prelaunch pad operations began in the early hours of April 12. By dawn officials and controllers had taken up their positions. Gagarin and Titov were woken at 5:30 am to be presented with a bunch of early wild flowers, a gift from the woman who had previously owned the cottage. After a short breakfast of meat paste, marmalade and coffee, doctors examined the cosmonauts, and assistants helped Gagarin and Titov into their cumbersome Sokol spacesuits followed by a bright orange coverall. Titov was dressed first since they did not want Gagarin to overheat. Soon they were on the bus to the launch site accompanied by 11 others including cosmonauts Nelyubov and Nikolayev and two cameramen. The film shows Gagarin taking his seat behind a small table. Titov walks past and sits behind Gagarin; hardly anyone seems to notice him.
Yuri Gagarin on his way to the launch pad on the morning of April 12, 1961. Seated behind him is backup pilot Gherman Titov.
At the pad, Gagarin and Titov were greeted by Korolev, Kamanin and other officials. Korolev, having not slept at all, looked fatigued as he watched Gagarin. After the embraces Gagarin went to the service elevator, where he halted and waved before the two-minute ride to the top. Vostok lead designer Oleg Ivanovsky helped him into the spacecraft and switched on the radio communications system. The ejection seat Gagarin was strapped into would have been of only limited use during the launch, even though ejection was the planned response to a catastrophic problem with the R-7 on the launch pad. In truth, Gagarin would never have gained sufficient altitude for the seat’s parachutes to work. Because of this, a huge net designed to catch the ejector seat was positioned some 1500 meters (4900 ft.) from the pad.
The officials walked back to the main command bunker. A small table with a green tablecloth had been laid out specifically for Korolev. There was a two-way radio for communicating with Gagarin in the capsule and a red telephone for giving the password to fire the rockets on the escape tower in case of an emergency during the first 40 seconds of the mission. Only three people knew the password. Gagarin’s call sign was “Kedr-Cedar,” while the ground call sign was “Zarya-Dawn.”
The flight was designed to be automatic. Ideally Gagarin would have nothing to do. But in the event of a malfunction he could take over command of the spacecraft by punching numbers into the keypad to release the controls, enabling him to use the thrusters to manually orientate it for reentry. The numbers were in an envelope in the capsule but Oleg Ivanovsky said they were three, two and five. Gagarin replied, to Oleg’s surprise, that he knew because Kamanin had already told him. Checks showed the hatch was not sealed properly. So engineers removed all 30 screws and then shut the hatch again; this time all the indicators were positive. Just as they finished, the gantry started to retract automatically toward its 45 degree angle for launch with the engineers still on it. A frantic phone call to the control room stopped the retraction for a few minutes while they descended. They finally left the vicinity about 30 minutes prior to the scheduled launch.
Ground Control: Yuri. You’re not getting bored there, are you?
Gagarin replied: If there was some music, I could stand it a little better.
Ground Control: One minute. Station Zarya, this is Zarya. Fulfill Kedr’s request. Give him some music. Give him some music. Did you read that?
At T–15 minutes Gagarin put on his gloves, and ten minutes later he closed his helmet. Korolev took tranquilizer pills. Of 16 launches involving this rocket, eight had failed. Of the seven Vostok spacecraft flown, two had failed to reach orbit because of booster malfunctions, while two others had failed to complete their missions. There was no American-style three, two, one countdown—just a checklist, which was soon completed.
At 9:06 and 59.7 seconds on the morning of April 12, 1961, the Vostok spacecraft lifted off with its 27-year-old passenger. “We’re off,” he cried. Korolev had the abort codes ready in case the booster did not achieve normal performance, but the launch trajectory was on target. After 19 seconds, the four strap-on boosters separated. The capsule’s shroud broke away 50 seconds later. At about 5 G, Gagarin reported some difficulty in talking, saying that all the muscles in his face were drawn and strained. The G-load steadily increased until the central core of the launcher ceased to operate and was detached at T+300 seconds. Gagarin’s pulse reached a maximum of 150 beats per minute.
Korolev was visibly shaking as the dramatic event proceeded. Incoming telemetry began to stream in a series of “fives,” indicating all was well. Then they changed to “threes.” There were brief seconds of terror—a “two” was a malfunction, but what was a “three”? After a few agonizing moments, the numbers reverted back to “fives.” Feoktistov remembers that: “these interruptions, a few seconds in length, shortened the lives of the designers.”
Gagarin: I see the Earth. The G-load is increasing somewhat. I feel excellent, in a good mood. I see the clouds. The landing site. It’s beautiful. What beauty. How do you read me?
Ground Control: We read you well. Continue the flight.
Orbital insertion occurred at T+676 seconds just after shutdown of the third-stage engine. The orbit was much higher than had been planned for the flight; the apogee—the furthest point from the Earth in the spacecraft’s orbit—was about 43.5 miles (70 km) over the planned altitude, indicating a less than optimum performance by the rocket. Korolev had been right to worry.
Gagarin reported that he had been in good shape:
I ate and drank normally. I could eat and drink. I noticed no physiological difficulties. The feeling of weightlessness was somewhat unfamiliar compared with Earth conditions. You feel as if you were hanging in a horizontal position in straps. You feel as if you are suspended. Later I got used to it and had no unpleasant sensations. I made entries into the logbook, reported, worked with the telegraph key. When I had meals I also had water. I let the writing pad out of my hands and it floated together with the pencil in front of me. Then when I had to write the next report. I took the pad but the pencil wasn’t where it had been. It had flown off somewhere.
Once the orbit had been determined, the data was sent to Moscow and reporters were instructed to open their secret envelopes. It took the Soviet news agency TASS an hour to broadcast the news:
The world’s first satellite-ship “Vostok” with a human on board was launched into an orbit about the Earth from the Soviet Union. The pilot-cosmonaut of the spaceship satellite “Vostok” is a citizen of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Major Yuri Alexeyevich Gagarin.
The Americans already knew. A radio surveillance station in Alaska had detected transmissions from the spacecraft 20 minutes after launch.
The capsule was spinning slowly, and through the porthole Gagarin could see the blackness of space and the blue-white of the Earth beneath him. He could not see the stars. The television camera trained on his face required a bright light that almost dazzled him. He said: “I can see the clouds, everything. It’s beautiful.”
Vostok’s path took it over Siberia, up to the Arctic Circle, across the Kamchatka Peninsula and into the Earth’s shadow over the Pacific. As Vostok’s orbit took it over Cape Horn and into the South Atlantic on the final leg of its journey, it was time to prepare for reentry. Seventy-nine minutes after liftoff Vostok automatically oriented itself, then the retro-rocket system fired for 40 seconds at 10:25 am. As soon as the braking rocket cut out, there was a sharp jolt, and Vostok began to rotate very quickly.
Gagarin: I had barely enough time to cover myself to protect my eyes from the Sun’s rays. I put my legs to the porthole, but didn’t close the blinds.’
There had been a serious malfunction. The large instrument section of the vehicle was due to separate from the spherical descent capsule but it did not happen. “I wondered what was going on and waited for the separation. There was no separation,” Gagarin said later. The mechanism detached the two modules as planned but the compartments remained loosely connected by a few cables. It was serious but not life threatening, and the instrument section did in fact break off later. Gagarin reported: “I used the telegraph key to transmit the ‘VN’ message meaning ‘all goes well.’”
During reentry Gagarin saw a bright purple light at the edges of the blinds and said he felt the capsule oscillate and the coating burn away with cracking sounds. He was subjected to an intense 10 G and for about two or three seconds the instrument readings became blurred. “My vision became somewhat grayish. I strained myself again. This worked,” Gagarin said. At an altitude of 7000 meters (23,000 ft.) parachutes opened, and then the hatch was jettisoned. Gagarin was ejected a few seconds later and, looking down, recognized he was near the Volga. He separated from his seat, and his personal parachute deployed.
Ground control spent several anxious minutes when communications were cut off soon after the retrorockets fired. Korolev telephoned Khrushchev, who was at the holiday resort at Pitsunda: “The parachute has opened, and he’s landing. The spacecraft seems to be OK!” Khrushchev begged to know:
At 10:55 am, just one hour and 48 minutes following launch, Gagarin landed softly in a field next to a deep ravine 18 miles (29 km) southwest of the town of Engels in the Saratov region. It took him six minutes to take off his spacesuit.
Gagarin: I had to do something to send a message that I had landed normally. I climbed a small hill and saw a woman with a girl approaching me. She was about 800 meters (2625 ft.) away from me. I walked to her to ask where I could find a telephone. She told me that I could use the telephone in the field camp. I asked the woman not to let anyone touch my parachute.
Korolev was beside himself, laughing and smiling for the first time in days. Members of the commission flew to the landing site to inspect the capsule. Korolev did not see it until later and reportedly could not take his eyes off it repeatedly touching it. Upon seeing Korolev, Gagarin reported quietly: “All is well, Sergei Pavlovich.”
The New York Times ran the headline “Soviet Orbits Man And Recovers Him.” It was a headline that echoed around the world. Gagarin returned to Moscow Airport flanked by an escort of fighter planes, while thousands of onlookers cheered him on a procession to Red Square where Khrushchev, Brezhnev and other leaders of the Soviet state basked in the unqualified triumph. Derided for years by the West for its antiquated technology, the Soviet Union had taken one of the most important steps in history. Korolev, the chief architect of this achievement, traveled several cars behind the leading motorcade and was forbidden from wearing previous state awards on his lapel for fear that Western agents might recognize him.
Shortly afterward US President John F. Kennedy asked Vice-President Lyndon Johnson for recommendations on activities in space that would provide “dramatic results” and beat the Soviets.
TIMELINE
| 1959 | April 9 NASA announces the selection of America’s first seven astronauts for the Mercury program |
| 1960 | May 15 First Vostok mission fails to return to Earth as planned |
| July 28 Launch of second Vostok mission fails, killing dogs on board | |
| August 19 Successful Vostok mission launched with dogs Belka and Strelka on board | |
| October 24 Russian R-19 rocket explodes on launch pad | |
| December 1 Russian space dogs Pchelka and Mushka launched into orbit | |
| December 22 Russian dogs Kometa and Shutka survive a launch failure | |
| 1961 | January 6 The first six Russian cosmonauts are selected |
| January 31 Chimpanzee Ham is the first primate in space aboard US Mercury-Redstone 2 | |
| March Two test missions of human-rated Vostok spacecraft | |
| April 12 Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin becomes the first man into space aboard Vostok I, experiencing the weightlessness of space for 108 minutes |
