Scrapbook 1: Apr 1961 — Gagarin
THE LAST CHECK as Yuri Gagarin sits in his spaceship only minutes before blasting off.
MOSCOW (AP) — The world’s first spaceman described here how it really fells to be in a state of “weightlessness.”
In an interview published by Izvestia, Yuri Gagarin said, “When weightlessness appeared I felt quite well. Everything became easier.”
“This is quite natural,” he commented. “One’s legs, arms weigh nothing, objects float in the cabin. Neither did I myself sit in the chair as I did before that, but hung in midair. While in the state of weightlessness, I ate and drank and everything occurred just as it does here on earth.
“I even worked in that condition, wrote, jotting down my observations. My handwriting did not change although the hand does not weigh anything. Only, I had to hold the notebook, otherwise it would float away. I maintained communications over different channels and tapped the telegraph key.”
Tass distributed the interview in the Russian language under a Moscow dateline without saying where it was conducted. Gagarin, 27-year-old major in the Soviet air force, returned to earth obviously in an area some distance from the capital and as yet undisclosed.
(Gagarin was promoted from first lieutenant to major only a few moments before he boarded his ship for man’s first venture into space, the official news agency Tass said, UPI reported.)
The entire flight, he asserted, was “work” all the way.
Even so, he said, he felt “excellent” during that period of his 108-minute flight round the world from 100 to 188 miles high Wednesday.
Describing the transition from weightlessness back to normality, Gagarin said it “takes place slowly, step by step, smoothly. Arms and legs feel as they felt before the state of weightlessness but they gained weight.”
Gagarin then told how the night and dayside of the earth looked from space.
“The dayside of the earth is seen quite well,” he replied.
“It is easy to distinguish the shores of continents, islands, big rivers and large reservoirs.
“During the flight, I succeeded for first time in seeing with my own eyes the ball shape form of the earth. It seems like that when you look at the horizon. I must say that the view of the horizon is unusual and very beautiful.
“It is possible to see the remarkably colorful change from the light surface of the earth to the completely black sky in which one can see the stars.
“This dividing line (from light surface to black) is very thin, just like a belt of film surrounding the earth’s sphere. This belt is like a narrow belt girdling the globe. It is of soft light blue color, and the entire transition from blue to black is most smooth and beautiful.
“It is even hard to put into words. When I emerged from the earth shadow the horizon seemed different. It now had a bright orange strip which then resolved itself into blue, and again into pitch black.”
“I could have stayed considerably longer in the space ship but the length of my flight was determined by a special program. I worked well in the spaceship, felt well and my morale was excellent. I could have stayed in the cosmic ship as long as it would have been necessary for fulfilling the task.”
Gagarin, father of two daughters, told Tass he had “wanted to become a cosmonaut” for some time.
What struck him most remarkably, he added, was how near the earth seemed even from the fantastic height of his space flight.
“I did not see the moon,” Gagarin continued. “The sun in outer space is tens of times brighter than here on earth. The stars are visible very well. They are bright and distinct. The entire picture of the firmament is much more contrasty than when seen from the earth.”
Radio Moscow disclosed later that Gagarin would be arriving in the capital Friday from his space station for a tremendous celebration.
The radio went to unusual lengths to say it would broadcast happenings at the celebration.
MAJOR GAGARIN’S training for space flight was described in the Moscow Literary Gazette yesterday by Professor Vasily Parin.
The professor said that the major was whirled around at terrific speed in a giant centrifuge and vibrated violently on special stands. He practised eating and drinking by squeezing water and jelly-like “space-food” from tubes into his mouth.
A correspondent of Komsomolskaya Pravda reported that Major Gagarin sang a patriotic song, “The Motherland hears, the Motherland knows where her son is flying in the clouds,” as he floated back to earth suspended from huge red and white parachute.
‘In love with you’
The report said that during the flight, music was relayed to him from the rocket control base, and interrupted only by instructions and “a suggestion that I should have a bite.”
While waiting for blast-off, it is reported he listened to the song “I am in love with you” played from a tape-recorder at the launching ground.
The woman collective farm worker, Mrs. Anna Akimovna Takhtarovana, who saw the major’s descent to earth, said she had been wrongly described as 35 years old. She was 47, and the little girl with her was her grand-daughter.
Major Gagarin had landed in a newly ploughed field, and “called to us in a friendly way.” He was dressed in red and said, “I am a Soviet man.” She added: “We shook hands and I invited him to a drink of milk.”
Special food
Standing in front of a huge white bust of Lenin, Gagarin told how he ate special foods prepared by the Academy of Medical Sciences.
He did not say what type of food. but added: “I had no particular hunger or thirst—I ate at the same times as I would on the ground. The sensations were just about the same.”
Asked about his landing technique, Major Gagarin said: “Many techniques of landing have been developed in our country. One of them was the parachute technique.
“In this flight we employed the following system: The pilot was in the cabin of the space ship. The landing proceeded successfully and demonstrated the success evolved for landing systems in our country.”
Professor Vassily Parin, of the Soviet Academy of Medicine, told the conference that, apart from Gagarin’s own report, doctors were able to observe his condition continuously by telemetry.
Transmitters incorporated in Gagarin’s space suit enabled them to keep track of his physiological condition.
SPACE NOTE: Reaching Mars at the rate he circled the world would take Yuri Gagarin at least ten weeks.
YURI’S PICTURES GIVEN AWAY
Coloured picture postcards of spaceman Yuri Gagarin were handed out by a visiting Russian, Mr Viktor Grishin, when he arrived at London Airport yesterday
The musical emphasis in reports of the flight is striking—popular songs before take-off, music-while-you-orbit, and patriotic songs during descent.
The American astronauts will be pretty fully occupied with their instruments and scientific tasks during their flight, and, it seems, will be unlikely to have time, as Major Gagarin did, to float about their cabin and sing.
However, there have often been oddities about the Russian approach to such matters.
It would not be surprising to learn that the major’s space seat was covered with red velvet, and that the cabin contained, besides instruments, a tiny aspidistra in a pot.
Space research switch?
OFFICIAL reports, technical papers and informal comments by Soviet delegates at the International Space Science Symposium, which ended here to-day, indicate that Russia will now put more emphasis on gathering scientific data.
There will be no rush of men into space. Having placed a man in orbit before the Americans, the Russians have made their point. Repetitions would make neither scientific sense nor an acceptable propaganda risk. A stabilised satellite carrying astronomical telescopes will soon be developed. Communications satellites are not on the Soviet priority list, although the United States has begun experiments on this type. The Russians also appear uninterested at present in satellites for navigation or for weather forecasting. There will be more deep-space probes and more ambitious manned space flights. Manned flight to the moon and back may be achieved within the next 10 years.
‘The sky is dark.. the Earth is blue’
THE Voice From Space said yesterday: “The sky is very, very dark, and the Earth is a light blue. Everything can be seen very clearly.”
It was the voice of Yuri Alexeyevitch Gagarin, the young Russian who, a few minutes before, had been hurled skywards into the greatest adventure ever undertaken by Man.
Out in Space, at a height of 125 miles, whirling round the world at five miles a second, Gagarin talked by radio to his base in Russia about what he saw on a television screen in his Spaceship.
THE UNKNOWN
And from him, for the first time, the world learned what it feels like to be a man out in boundless Space . . . alone in a great emptiness where no man had been before.
Gagarin—whose name means the Wild Duck—was in a Spaceship weighing 3¾ tons.
He was strapped on a couch . . . surrounded by a double wall of metal that protected him from radiation and the battering of meteorites.
He had undergone gruelling tests. The type of Spaceship in which he travelled had been tested, too— on five unmanned Space probes.
But, for all the tests, Gagarin was facing the unknown. . . .
This is the 108-minute drama of how Gagarin, the Wild Duck, the family man, the fearless, conquered Space.
7.7 a.m. (British Summer Time). Gagarin’s Spaceship was blasted up from its Russian base, High . . . high . . . high. OUT of the earth’s atmosphere . . . OUT into Space . . . into the curve that would take It circling the globe.
7.22 a.m. Over SOUTH AMERICA—and the Spaceman reported: “The flight is continuing OK. I feel well.”
8.15 a.m. Over AFRICA, and another message: “Flight normal. I am withstanding well the state of weightlessness.”
8.25 a.m. Moscow Radio reported that braking device had been brought into action and the Spaceship was trying to come down in the direction of a predetermined base in Russia.
8.55 a.m. The Spaceman landed “somewhere in Russia” and, soon after he landed, he sent this message to Moscow:
“Please report to the Party and Government and personally to Nikita Sergeyevitch Krushchev that the landing was normal. I feel well, have no injuries or bruises.”
NEXT TIME?
“We will not carry out a second experiment until we have learned all the lessons of the first one.”
Scientists at the conference, however, expect another Russian to go into Space within three months. They think he may make THREE TRIPS round the world.
MOSCOW REJOICES
Moscow went wild with delight . . . and from Mr. Krushchev, holidaymaking on the Black Sea, came this message to Gagarin:
“The entire Soviet people acclaims your valiant feat, which will be remembered down the centuries as an example of courage, gallantry and heroism in the name of service to mankind. . . .
With my whole heart I congratulate you on your happy return to the homeland from your Space journey. I embrace you. Until our meeting in Moscow soon. . . .“
Later, Mr. Krushchev telephoned the Wild Duck and asked how he felt.
“I feel well,” the Spaceman replied. “All the apparatus the Spaceship worked accurately. I saw the Earth from a great height. Seas, mountains, large towns, rivers and forests were visible.”
A reporter of the Russian newspaper “Izvestia” told of seeing Gagarin after he landed.
“He was smiling as only a thoroughly happy man can do. He was getting out of the aircraft. He wore a light, sky-blue flight suit and a Space-helmet.
HAPPY
“Gagarin embraced one of his old friends who met him here at the airfield—so firmly that it looked as though he was wrestling. The mood was happy and gay one.”
In Florence, Italy, where he is attending an international Space conference. Russia’s No. 1 Space scientist, Professor Anatoli Blagonravov, 67, heard that his dream of putting a man into Space had been realised.
Professor Blagonravov was asked: “Was Gagarin able to do anything to help himself return to earth, or was the whole process directed and controlled from the ground?”
He replied: “To a certain degree the man brought himself down, but the bulk of the procedure was controlled from the ground.”
Professor Blagonravov added that Gagarin was completely Instructed on the use of equipment in his Spaceship, “even how to make small repairs if necessary during the flight.”
The professor was also asked: “When will the next Russian go into Space?”
He said: “That depends on the information we get from the thorough medical overhaul of Major Gagarin.
The Redstone rocket which is to take the first American into Space was standing yesterday on Its launching pad at Cape Canaveral, Florida. A technician there commented: “So close and yet so far.”
IN WASHINGTON, Mr. Victor Anfuso, of the Congressional Space Committee, called for an investigation of America’s Man-In-Space project. He said: “I want to see schedules cut in half. I want to see some firsts. . . .”
The earth, he said, had a very vivid and beautiful blue halo.
As he whirled on his 108-minute orbit, colours changed from ultra marine blue and violet to pitch black.
He flashed from night into day in minutes. “Entry into the earth’s shadow was very quick. Darkness seemed to descend at once.”
Emergence from the earth’s shadow also was very quick. “Suddenly there was a very bright blinding light.”
Gagarin, smiling and laughing, was electrifying his audience and charming them with his frank boyish attitude.
His space flight, he said, was similar to flying at high speed in a jet plane.
He observed the world below through a porthole.
“The Vostok did not carry a single camera—therefore there are no pictures,” he said.
Asked If the space ship could be used again, he laughed: “That is, of course, a question for scientists but I think the entire ship and its parts can be used again.”
Spaceman Gagarin spoke yesterday of “the greatest and brightest event in my life before I made that flight into Space.” It was joining the Communist Party—and receiving Party card No. 089092627.
Gagarin added that he was dedicating his flight to the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, to the Soviet Government, to the 22nd Party Congress and to the whole people who were “marching in the vanguard of mankind and building a new society.”
HE LANDED ON BOTH FEET
SPACEMAN Gagarin completed the last part of his journey back to Earth by PARACHUTE, Soviet newspapers reported yesterday.
After baling out from his Spaceship, Gagarin came down in a ploughed field “on feet and without even tumbling.”
The location of the field was not revealed, but the first person to greet Gagarin was a farm worker called Anna.
She shook his hand when he told her who he was.