After his historic flight into orbit, Yuri Gagarin was under the scrutiny of the press and the public. It seemed that there were no more secrets in his life. Nevertheless, for decades it remained classified, perhaps one of the brightest pages of the cosmonaut's post-flight life - his studies at the academy, where Gagarin developed a combat spaceplane.
On April 12, 1961, Yuri Alekseevich Gagarin made a single-orbital flight on the Vostok spacecraft and after a safe landing, he instantly became famous all over the world. The Soviet government used the huge interest in the next historic event to promote the advantages of socialism and sent the astronaut on a world tour.
Life of a legend
Only in the first months after the flight, he visited Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, Finland, Great Britain, Poland, Cuba, Brazil, Canada and Hungary. Everywhere he was expected to meet with politicians, cultural figures, officers, ordinary workers and employees.
Very quickly, Gagarin developed his own unique style of communication with people, which made a consistently good impression: he linked any profession with astronautics and proved that each person in his place contributes to the cause of extraterrestrial expansion.
In addition to speeches, press conferences and lectures, Yuri Gagarin took on the role of an unofficial diplomatic envoy. For example, when he found himself in Brazil, with which the Soviet Union had no diplomatic relations, he conveyed a letter from Nikita Khrushchev to President Janiu Cuadrus, thanks to which a dialogue began on the establishment of mutually beneficial contacts between the countries.
To raise the political weight of Gagarin, they began to promote him to the highest echelons of power. In particular, at the XXII Congress of the CPSU, he appeared as a delegate from the Moscow party organization, and later, in March 1962, became a deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. At the same time, he had to talk with voters and listen to their orders. Contemporaries noted that the first cosmonaut willingly went to meet those who asked for help, and since no one dared to refuse him, all kinds of problems were solved with the participation of Gagarin quickly and efficiently.
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Political activity was accompanied by publicistic speeches. Yuri Gagarin has published many articles on a variety of issues, from sports support to literary criticism. And you can see how his journalistic skills grew from article to article. In later articles, he increasingly acted as a futurologist, trying to explain to readers in understandable language how astronautics will develop in the future.
As a result of his flight, Gagarin published an autobiographical book "The Road to Space", which was literally processed by experienced Pravda reporters Nikolai Denisov and Sergei Borzenko. Later, the cosmonaut, without the participation of literary workers, will write, together with psychologist Vladimir Lebedev, the book "Psychology and Space", in which for the first time the experience of human interaction with extraterrestrial space will be openly generalized.
At the Cosmonaut Training Center of the Moscow Region Star City, Yuri Gagarin had the informal status of a “mentor of the young” and held the official positions of Deputy Chief of the Air Force Center for Flight and Space Training and Head of the Flight and Space Training Department. Over time, he was supposed to head the Center itself, but before Gagarin should have received a higher education.
In the shoes of a designer
The fact that the members of the cosmonaut corps are studying at the university became known almost immediately upon their enrollment. Yuri Gagarin himself wrote in the essay "Ready for new space flights": "An urgent need for knowledge led me and G. Titov to the auditorium of the Air Force Engineering Academy named after prof. NOT. Zhukovsky. For the upcoming flights, in addition to excellent health, deep flight and engineering knowledge is required. An astronaut must be a pilot, a navigator, an engineer, and a researcher."
However, journalists and cosmonauts shared information about the course of training sparingly, and if they did, they got off with empty phrases, behind which there was no intelligible content. From time to time, photographs appeared in print in which Gagarin was sitting in the classroom, looking at some drawings and diagrams, drawing something with chalk on a blackboard, working with some devices. But it was not possible to understand what exactly he was doing. For the first time, information about the learning process was published in the book of Professor Sergei Mikhailovich Belotserkovsky "Gagarin's Diploma", published in 1986. Since then, new documents and evidence have been declassified, shedding light on what the cosmonauts were doing within the walls of the Air Force Engineering Academy (VVIA).
The decision on the need for higher education by members of the cosmonaut corps was made in July 1961. Together with Gagarin and Titov, Andriyan Nikolaev, Pavel Popovich, Valery Bykovsky, Alexey Leonov, Boris Volynov, Evgeny Khrunov, Viktor Gorbatko, Georgy Shonin, Ivan Anikeev, Dmitry Zaikin, Mars Rafikov, Valentin Filatyev went to study at the VVIA. A year later, they were joined by girls from the women's set. Not all of them reached the defense of the diploma, not all flew into space, but this was not due to personal qualities, but to problems that inevitably arose during preparation for flights.
The choice in favor of the Academy named after N. E. Zhukovsky was made under the influence of the chief designer of rocket technology, Sergei Pavlovich Korolev, who had plans for this university. Of course, the curriculum began to be drawn up even before admission, and Korolev was one of the most active participants in its discussion. Once he said to Professor Belotserkovsky: “Show them how hard it is to be in our“skin”. It is very important. They felt the "skin" of the cosmonaut, but the "skin" of the chief designer did not. And they need to understand well the difficulties of the constructor. There is only one problem, you cannot tear it apart …"
Thesis topic
Training at the VVIA, which began on September 1, 1961, was not easy for the cosmonauts. Indeed, at the same time, it was necessary to attend training, fly to maintain skills, engage in social and political work. Therefore, it quickly acquired a part-time form and lasted more than six years.
Since the cosmonauts entered without exams and had only a mediocre secondary education behind them, serious gaps were revealed in the very first lessons. Everyone, including Yuri Gagarin, grabbed twos. At some point, the situation became so critical that the first cosmonaut, on behalf of fellow colleagues, turned to the Air Force Commander with a request to transfer everyone to the Air Force Academy, located in Monino. It was believed that it was much easier for career officers to study there. Marshal Konstantin Andreevich Vershinin listened to Gagarin and replied: "In the near future I will not have fleets of spaceships that you could command, so study there!"
And the astronauts had to take up their minds. We must pay tribute to them: despite the difficult schedule and the severity of the teachers, they were able to achieve great success. All subsequent grades were excellent, starting from the second year of study, the astronauts were solid and well-deserved.
In October 1965, the question arose about thesis. The Academy put forward three themes: Orbital Reconnaissance Aircraft, Orbital Interceptor Aircraft, and Spacecraft for Striking Objects on Earth. Although the leadership of the Cosmonaut Training Center was more interested in the development of the complex theme "Mastering the Moon", Gagarin convinced his higher comrades that "the Moon cannot be pulled." In the end, we settled on the project of a combat spaceplane - an orbital aircraft that takes off on a carrier rocket and returns, gliding in the atmosphere, to any Soviet airfield.
I'll land on a parachute
Even before the appearance of cosmonauts, VVIA was carrying out preliminary studies of the project of a reusable highly maneuverable winged orbital vehicle, called in the documents KLA ("Spacecraft"). The project appeared under the impression of the triumphant launches of satellites - the employees of the academy guessed that a person would soon go into orbit, so they showed a creative initiative.
Each of the cosmonauts received its own independent section, which was carefully linked with all the others in such a way that, taken together, all the work could be considered as a technical proposal for the project of a new spacecraft. In the course of discussing the structure of the thesis, it naturally turned out that Yuri Gagarin took a special place. It was he who assigned the graduate students to the leaders and held a discussion of the topic with Sergei Korolev.
The areas of activity chosen by the graduate students say a lot about their preferences. Yuri Gagarin was responsible for the general methodology for using spacecraft and chose the configuration of the vehicle (aerodynamic shapes, dimensions of load-bearing elements, landing methods), thereby acting as an informal “chief designer”. The system of emergency rescue of the device was worked out by German Titov. Andriyan Nikolaev was responsible for the calculation of aerodynamic characteristics and thermal protection. The power plant was handled by Pavel Popovich, the attitude control systems - by Evgeny Khrunov, the fuel system and engine - by Valery Bykovsky.
The final version of the spaceplane with the calculated geometric parameters was approved in 1966. A wooden model for aerodynamic research, named "YUG", was made according to Yuri Gagarin's drawing-sketch.
By the middle of autumn 1967, the draft of the apparatus in the draft was "linked", and the review of what had been done began. As a consultant, Alexander Andreevich Dyachenko, a VVIA specialist in flight dynamics, was involved. After reviewing the work, he asked Gagarin: “Are you going to land a plane? Or is it not necessary? " And I heard the answer: "As a last resort I will land on a parachute." The indignant Dyachenko issued a negative conclusion: “There is a major defect in the work: the dynamics of planting has not been studied. Landing an airplane by parachute is absurd."
200 credits
After several days of discussion, a decision was made on further steps: to finalize the aerodynamics of the spaceplane, to study the landing process to determine the method of piloting, to consider installing a small air-jet engine that provides landing. Gagarin opposed the latter decision, because it would require a change in the entire diploma project. So he went the other way.
At the Department of Flight Dynamics, a simulating simulator was mounted, which included an MN-8 electronic computer, a pilot's seat with controls and recording devices, on which Gagarin independently conducted 200 test "landings". Moreover, the "landings" were made both in ideal conditions and taking into account the wind and curvature of the Earth, which, along with the improvement of the aerodynamics of the apparatus, allowed Gagarin to justify the rejection of the additional engine. With good reason, this simulator can be considered the first aerobatic stand in our country.
For the last few months before the protection, the cosmonauts were placed at the full disposal of the academy. They lived in a cadet dormitory, working 12-14 hours a day. For Gagarin, a small office was allocated on the third floor in the aerodynamic laboratory, where he worked non-stop from January 4 to February 16, 1968, completing his thesis. Since it fell to him to be the "chief designer", the explanatory note prepared by him was twice as long as that of other cosmonauts.
On February 17, Yuri Gagarin brilliantly defended the project, receiving the qualification "pilot-engineer-cosmonaut" and a diploma with honors. As a result, the State Examination Commission recommended that he continue his studies at the correspondence post-graduate course of the Academy. He became the first applicant for the academy among cosmonauts, and the topic of the diploma was to become the topic of his Ph. D. thesis. Unfortunately, the grandiose plans were ruined by the sudden death of an astronaut in a plane crash on March 27, 1968 …
Anton PERVUSHIN