It was 50 years ago on this day that Yuri Gagarin of the then Soviet Union became the first man to conquer space, setting off a great and bitter race with the US in space flights. The flight was historic as Yuri, a 27-year-old Air Force pilot became the first man to break free from the shackles of earth’s gravity.
Fidel Castro (R) hands out a trophy to Soviet Union's cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin (C) as Ernesto "Che" Guevara stands near in Havana in this file photo from May 26, 1961. Picture taken May 26, 1961 REUTERS
Though much of Yuri's 108 minute journey in outer space is well documented, some interesting snippets have emerged 50 years after a secret Soviet Russia recently made public few key papers.
It should be flagged here that Yuri became a space hero and super hero overnight, but some uncomfortable facts behind the flight were hidden from the world by the bosses in Soviet Union.
Here are some interesting snippets:
Just before his flight, Yuri had lied to his wife Valya. Before boarding the Vostok 1 flight April 12, 1961, for the journey that would propel him into history, Yuri, then 27 years old, did not tell his wife about the real date of the flight. "She knew what he wanted to do, and when he was leaving for Baikonur he told her what he was doing," Yuria, Yuri's daughter, said recently.
"But he didn't tell her the actual date. He told her the flight would take place a few days after the real date, so she wouldn't be worried."
A `secret' death letter
Yuri was not very sure and confident about his space mission. Just before leaving for Baikonur, he wrote a letter to his wife saying he may not return because the flight was extremely dangerous, and that he wanted her not to remain on her own in that case. However, he did not give the letter to Valya, hoping that she would find it in case he did not return.
The stuffed remains of Soviet space dog Strelka is on display during the opening of an exhibition at the Memorial Museum of Astronautics in Moscow April 8, 2011. Russia will celebrate the 50th anniversary of Yuri Gagarin's historic first space flight on April 12. REUTERS
Days later after he came back, she found the letter by chance. On seeing the letter, Valya was moved to tears and a calm Yuri asked her to destroy the letter. But she kept the `letter of death' with her as a treasure of love.
He said in his letter: "I believe completely in the technical equipment, but even on level ground a person sometimes falls over and breaks his neck."
Fellow cosmonauts have described Valya as a "perfect wife of a cosmonaut" - always calm, composed and dignified. The two fell in love when Yuri was undergoing training for his wings the Air Force. The day he graduated, he married Valya.
Did Yuri see God in outer space?
After making the historic flight, Yuri became a superhero. Prime Minister Nitika Khruschev held a grand reception in Moscow. After the reception, while the dignitaries were having a cup of tea, Khruschev spotted Yuri with the head of the Orthodox Church of Russia. A naughty Khruschev went up and asked Yuri if he had seen God in space. A cool and calm Yuri said: "Yes sir, I did." Not taken aback, the PM smiled and said: "Do not tell anyone."
The church head overheard the conversation and took Yuri aside soon after Khruschev left. He asked Yuri: "Tell me my child, did you see God up in space?"
Yuri smiled and said: "No sir, I did not. But do not tell anyone."
A man passes a portrait of Yuri Gagarin during a ceremonial reception, dedicated to the upcoming Day of Aviation and Cosmonautics and the 50th anniversary of Gagarin's historic first space flight celebrated on April 12, in Moscow April 11, 2011. REUTERS
A close shave before launch
Yuri's take-off was not a smooth affair. His premonitions of danger at every nut and bolt were true. Minutes before the flight, 20th century's greatest space hero discovered that the door of his capsule was not getting properly latched and the sensors were beaming red and yelling danger.
The command centre rushed engineers who had to work at breakneck speed to loosen 32 screws, remove the hatch to repair the faulty sensor.
A heavy weight spaceman
The faulty door was not the only hitch. According to the documents of Russia's space agency, Roscosmos, scientists found that Yuri was `overweight' as the combined weight of the cosmonaut, his spacesuit and his seat was 13.6kg above the acceptable maximum. This was discovered just a day before the historic flight.
In a frantic and dangerous attempt to cut down `flab', engineers stripped part of the Vostok's internal apparatus. However, in their tearing hurry, the repair engineers disconnected two gauges, one for pressure and one for temperature. This caused a massive short circuit, which, again, was fixed at the last moment.
Caught overspeeding
Yuri's spacecraft blasted into space at a speed that exceeded the limit by over 100 km. The speed registered was 326 km instead of 230 km. This was because an engine failed to cut out to speed when it exceeded 230 km.
Loses a pencil
Yuri was to write all the details of his mission in space - minute by minute. But the cosmonaut was not able to do so as the pencil he was holding slipped off due to zero gravity and he could not find it.
A mentally and physically fit man
Son of a carpenter, Yuri was a highly disciplined man with a passion for poetry. He was so disciplined that he could take naps of exactly 40 minutes and wake up "on the dot" without an alarm clock, Elena Yuria told Andrea Rose from the British Council.
"He was also phenomenally calm, and mentally disciplined. For example, if he came home during the day and said he was tired, he would say 'I have 40 minutes to sleep, I am very tired.' He then slept for 40 minutes and woke up on the dot, without needing an alarm clock or anyone to wake him."
"Very often, as he was working hard during the day and came back late at night, he would gather up some friends and they'd go to play hockey in the nearby stadium. They'd play through the night, and sometimes ended up sleeping only about three to four hours. But it didn't affect his health: he was always extremely physically fit," she said.
"He didn't even really understand what it meant to have any internal pain. He would say to us that he couldn't actually imagine what it must feel like to have something wrong inside."
Yuri had a passion for literature, his daughter said in the interview reproduced in The Guardian.
"He liked to talk to us about books and literature, and he liked to recite poetry to us. He knew a lot of poetry by heart, and he liked to teach us to recite it too."
"He knew Pushkin very well, and Tvardovsky and Ivakovsky - poetry connected with the war. He liked a great deal of literature - Lermontov, and Saint-Exupery, for example. He liked to read to us in a very loud voice. It was too difficult for us to understand at the time, but he still liked doing it."
Yuri was born in the Russian village of Klushino on March 9, 1934 to Alexey Ivanovich Gagarin and Anna. His father was a carpenter and Yuri was third of four children.
On March 27,1968, Yuri died mysteriously when his MiG-15 crashed.
His smile got him the ticket to space
It was Gherman Titov who was actually supposed to go to space. He had scored higher marks than Yuri in various tests. But Sergei Korolev, the Soviet rocket genius, selected Yuri on some strange parameters: his smile, temperament, modesty, attitude, fantastic memory and sense of attention to his surroundings. Other attributes that went in Yuri's favour: imagination, quick reaction and the capability to understand life better than others.
US caught napping
While Yuri was disciplined with his sleep and health, the US was literally caught napping when Yuri was in space.
It was at 1.30 am 50 years ago that US President John F Kennedy , fast asleep, was woken up by a telephone call. On the other end was Jerome Wiesner, the President's scientific adviser, who told Kennedy that the Soviet Union had stolen a march in space technology by sending a man to outer space.
It was Pentagon that first alerted Wiesner 23 minutes after Yuri blasted off to space. The US caught `Yuri' stealing a march in space when the US radars at Aleutian Islands picked up radio signals from the cosmonaut.
The wake up call that Kennedy got was the second setback for the US in space technology. On October 4,1957, the Soviets launched the world's first satellite, Sputnik, inaugurating the global space era.
Yuri, in a way, flagged off the great race to outer space.
Source: India Syndicate with inputs from IANS
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