Yuri Gagarin

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Yuri Gagarin's orbital space flight: I have never read more conspiracy theories than about him and his flight.


Gagarin in Helsinki 1961

He was born on March 9, 1934 and has died in the air accident on March 27, 1968. He was the first human being to travel into the Earth's orbit on Vostok 1 spacecraft making single orbit on April 12, 1961. Mercury astronaut Alan Shepard became the first American in space less than a month later, which made the space race so tight. It would be also good to mention that the Gagarin's flight helped NASA to shape the decision of putting a human being on the Moon. Sometimes being second is the best motivation to get better next time! 

Gagarin was chosen together with other 19 pilots for the Soviet space program. He was selected for the training group known as the Sochi Six. For the first launch were chosen Gagarin and Gherman Titov. Vostok 3KA cockpit was quite small and both of them were relatively short, Gagarin measured only 1.57 m. Titov was later chosen for the Vostok 2 mission spending more than one day (25 hours and 18 minutes) in space on August 6, 1961. 

Vostok 1: We had the model at home. Wish I can get back home and make a picture of that.

Vostok 1 was launched from Baikonur Cosmodrome and reached the upper atmosphere at 169 km. The mission was either automatic or controlled from the ground. It was for the reason that doctors and space engineers were unsure how human will react to microgravity or weightlessness. There was envelope with unlocking code onboard in case of emergency. Prior the flight staff told Gagarin the code anyway. The flight took all together 108 minutes and made one orbit. Gagarin parachuted from his capsule at the altitude 7 km and it took about 10 minutes to land.  

 Vostok 1K was prototype spacecraft.
Vostok 2K was later renamed for name Zenit, which was series of military satellites launched by Soviets. 
Vostok 3KA was what was used for the first human spaceflights. Some few facts of the spherical reentry module:
  • Size for 1 person
  • Diameter of sphere 2.3m
  • Weight 2.460 kg
  • Crew ejects at 7 km altitude
  • Ballistic reentry acceleration 8g
Vostok-K rockets were designed for the human spaceflights program. 
 
Vostok 8K72K rocket on display in Moscow

Location: Helsinki, Finland

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