On April 12, 1961, Yuri Gagarin became the first person in the world to fly into outer space.
1. Not one, but two understudies accompanied Yuri Gagarin to the spacecraft. In addition to the well-known German Titov, Grigory Nelyubov was the understudy. Unlike Gagarin and Titov, he did not put on a spacesuit, but was ready to fly in case of special circumstances.
The life of Nelyubov was tragic: some time after Gagarin's flight, he was expelled from the cosmonaut corps for violation of discipline, and a few years later he died in an accident.
2. Two days before the flight into space, Yuri Gagarin wrote a farewell letter to his wife in case a disaster happened. In 1961, this letter was not required. Gagarin's wife Valentina Ivanovna will be given this letter after the plane crash on March 27, 1968, in which the first cosmonaut of the Earth died.
3. The flight of Vostok-1 was carried out in a fully automatic mode. This was due to the fact that no one could give guarantees that the cosmonaut would retain his working capacity in zero gravity. In the most extreme case, Yuri Gagarin was given a special code that allowed him to activate manual control of the ship.
4. Initially, three prelaunch appeals of the "first cosmonaut to the Soviet people" were recorded. The first was recorded by Yuri Gagarin, and two more were recorded by his backup German Titov and Grigory Nelyubov. In exactly the same way, three texts of the TASS message about the first manned flight into space were prepared: in case of a successful flight, in case of searching for an astronaut, and also in case of a disaster.
5. Before the flight of "Vostok-1" there was an emergency: when checking the tightness, the sensor on the hatch did not give the required signal. Since there was very little time left before the start, such a problem could lead to a postponement of the launch.
Then the leading designer of "Vostok-1" Oleg Ivanovskiy with the workers demonstrated fantastic skills, to the envy of the current mechanics of "Formula-1", in a matter of minutes unscrewing 30 nuts, checking and correcting the sensor and again closing the hatch in the prescribed manner. This time, the tightness test was successful, and the start was carried out at the scheduled time.
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6. During the final stage of the flight, Yuri Gagarin threw a phrase about which for a long time they preferred not to write anything: "I am burning, goodbye, comrades!"
The fact is that before Gagarin no one had a clear idea of what it would look like for a spacecraft to pass through dense layers of the atmosphere during descent. Therefore, Gagarin, like any pilot, seeing a raging flame in the window, assumed that the spacecraft was engulfed in fire and in a few seconds it would die. In fact, the friction of the spacecraft's heat-resistant skin on the atmosphere is a working moment that occurs during each flight. Now the astronauts are ready for this bright and impressive spectacle, which was first seen by Gagarin.
7. Famous footage of the negotiations between Yuri Gagarin in the cockpit of the ship and chief designer Sergei Korolev at the command post is an imitation made in a later period. However, it is hardly worth blaming the participants in this historical event - at the moment of the real start, they simply had no time for it. Later, they decided to recreate the missing chronicle, asking Gagarin and Korolev to repeat the same words that were said by them on April 12, 1961.
8. The Vostok spacecraft did not provide for the landing of astronauts inside the descent vehicle: at an altitude of 1500 meters, the pilot ejected. This was due to the fact that the "Vostoks" did not have soft landing engines that ensure a safe landing. In addition, the specialists feared that the hatch would “weld” under the influence of high temperatures in the dense layers of the atmosphere.
However, due to the landing outside the ship, the International Aeronautical Federation refused to register Gagarin's record flight. And then the Soviet representatives cheated by announcing that the first cosmonaut had landed in the cockpit. The actual circumstances of the landing of the USSR were officially recognized only in 1964.
9. One of the most heatedly discussed topics related to Gagarin's flight is the inscription "USSR" on the cosmonaut's helmet … It arose due to the fact that in recent years the inscription on Gagarin's images very often disappears somewhere. In this regard, the question arose - how did she even appear on the helmet of the first astronaut? Oddly enough, there is no final clarity on this issue either. Hero of the Soviet Union, test pilot Mark Gallay, who trained the first cosmonauts and was present at the Gagarin launch, said in the book "With a man on board" that the inscription appeared at the very last moment. Allegedly, 20 minutes before Gagarin's departure to the start, they remembered the spy flight of American Powers that had happened before and decided to put the letters "USSR" on the helmet so that the astronaut would not be confused with the saboteur. The letters were drawn in a hurry, without removing the helmet from Gagarin's head.
At the same time, veterans of the Zvezda enterprise, which produces spacesuits for cosmonauts, claim that the inscription was made during the preparation of the spacesuit for flight, in advance, and even indicate the name of the worker who completed this task - Davidyants.
10. One of the most memorable details about the first manned flight into space was … laces. While Yuri Gagarin was walking along the carpet before the report to Nikita Khrushchev on the successful implementation of the flight, the untied laces on the boot of the first cosmonaut were captured in the frame. This household detail only added to the people's love for Gagarin. Meanwhile, Sergei Khrushchev, the son of Nikita Khrushchev, who was present at that ceremony, assures that Gagarin's laces were in order. The sock brace let down the hero of space. Previously, socks were made without elastic bands, and braces were worn on the calves to prevent the socks from slipping. Gagarin had this elastic band loose on one leg, and an iron buckle hit him on the leg.
Author: Andrey Sidorchik