Scrapbook 1: Aug 1961 — Gherman Titov
NOTE: Gherman Titov was the second Soviet in space, after Shepard and Grissom’s suborbital flights, and remains the youngest person to orbit the Earth. He had a somewhat rebellious personality.
MESSAGES from all over the world praising Russia’s new Space triumph began to pour into Moscow soon after the news of the blast-off.
The first Soviet Spaceman, Major Yuri Gagarin, who is in Canada, sent a special radio message to Titov.
Excited
It was relayed to the Spaceship from Moscow and said:
“Dear Gherman, from my heart I am with you. I embrace you, my friend, and kiss you hard.
“I am excitedly following your flight. I am sure your flight will be successfully completed and will once again bring glory to our great homeland.”
As soon as he heard of his country’s new Space achievement, Major Gagarin decided to fly back to Russia so that he could greet Titov when he landed.
Brave
IN AMERICA, Mr. Adlai Stevenson, US Ambassador to the United Nations, said:
Russia’s scientific contribution to the conquest of outer Space commands our admiration. Let us hope the capsule is recovered and the life of this brave man saved.
I am sure those are the views of President Kennedy and I am sure also this event sharpens the need for some action to regulate the use of outer Space and to keep the arms race from spreading to that field.
THE most amazing journey in history ended triumphantly yesterday when Gherman Titov, 26, code-named “Eagle,” dipped down in his Spaceship, Vostok II, and landed in a Russian field.
Farm workers, who had been harvesting grain, ran to meet him. They embraced Titov, said a Moscow report last night. And a tractor driver said to him: “My dear fellow, I heartily congratulate you!”
CONGRATULATIONS . . . on Space flight lasting 25 hours 18 minutes in which he made 17 complete circuits of the Earth.
CONGRATULATIONS . . . on an 18,000-mile-an-hour journey totalling 435,000 miles—almost the distance from the Earth to the Moon and back again.
Titov landed near Smelovka, about 400 miles south-east of Moscow.
In this area special apparatus has been set up to guide returning Spacemen—for it was here that Spaceman No. 1, Yuri Gagarin, landed after his 108-minute flight in April.
Parachutes
It is believed that Titov came down in the same way as Gagarin—with Vostok II suspended from parachutes which Titov released after his Spaceship entered the Earth’s atmosphere.
After Titov landed, the farm workers helped him out of his Space suit. They asked him if he was lonely whirling along 110 miles out in Space. He replied:
“I was not lonely . . . I had good link with Earth. I heard radio broadcast from my native land . . . our Soviet music.”
Titov went to a nearby house to phone Mr. Krushchev. As he phoned, thousands of people swarmed round the house, shouting: “Titov! Titov!”
Gigantic
That was only a foretaste of the gigantic greeting which awaits Titov when he reaches Moscow today or tomorrow.
For Titov there will be an airport welcome in Moscow, a Red Square rally and a Kremlin reception. And a reunion with his wife, twenty-three-year-old Tamara. When she was told yesterday that her husband had landed safely Tamara said:
“I am very proud of my husband. We Soviet women are the happiest because our husbands and brothers are first in everything.”
Tamara spent most of yesterday with Yuri Gagarin’s wife, Valentina and two Gagarin children.
Gherman and Tamara had a son who died when he was seven months old.
Britain’s Prime Minister Harold Macmillan, yesterday wired Mr. Krushchev: “Please convey my congratulations to Major Titov and to all concerned with this great feat of science and technology.”
It’s a big bouquet for a Space-hero. Smiling Gherman Titov clutches a bunch of flowers and waves a greeting to a Russian crowd welcoming him yesterday after his triumphant return to Earth.