Vostok 1
Published on Jul 10, 2007 at 12:39 pm.
5 Comments.
Filed under space exploration, wonders.
My second pick for my list of Seven Wonders of Space Exploration was Vostok 1. On April 12, 1961, another massive R-7 rocket lifted off from the launch site later named Baikonur (The launch site itself was not near the town Baikonur, but was rather near Tyuratam. The Soviet Union, though, had reported that the Sputnik and Vostok flights were launched from a facility near Baikonur in order to throw off any espionage or surveillance flights over their launch facilities. American intelligence, though, knew the actual launch site, so the subterfuge failed in its attempt. In 1995, the Russian launch facility, now in Kazakhstan, was finally officially renamed the Baikonur Cosmodrome). This latest R-7 was modified with an upper assembly that carried a heavy ball that closely resembled a bathysphere. In fact, the function was somewhat analogous, for inside the sphere was cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin. The sphere was designed to protect him and keep him alive in outer space. The rocket lifted off at 06:07 UT on the morning of April 12. Then, 1 hour and 48 minutes later the craft landed again in the Soviet Union, somewhat to the west of where it launched from, having made one complete circuit of the Earth. The path of the spacecraft was an orbit, but it did not land at the starting point because the Earth had rotated beneath it during the nearly two hour flight. This was the first time that a human had ever been launched into space.
At the time of the flight, it was generally believed throughout most of the world that Gagarin had ridden the capsule from start to finish. However, the parachutes slowing the capsule were not able to slow it enough to cushion the impact enough for a human to survive the capsule crashing into the ground. So, at an altitude of about 7km, Gagarin ejected from the capsule and floated down to the ground on his own parachute. The Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI), the international body that keeps aerospace records, had as one of the rules for a spaceflight that the pilot had to take off and land with his craft in order for it to officially count as a spaceflight. Once word got out that Gagarin had not actually landed with his capsule, debate started as to who gets the record for the first spaceflight, Yuri Gagarin or Alan Shepard, who actually did land with his Freedom 7 capsule at the end of its 15.5 minute Mercury-Redstone 3 flight a few weeks later on May 5, 1961. Regardless of who actually gets the credit in the official record books, Yuri Gagarin was undeniably the first human ever launched into space, and that earns him and Vostok 1 a special place in history.
The Vostok capsule was small, cramped, and the cosmonaut did little more than go along for the ride. The capsule was preprogrammed and controlled by the ground. This is quite unlike the American Mercury capsules, where the astronauts were able to actively participate in flying the capsule and were even able to take control if necessary. The selection criteria for Soviet cosmonauts did not even list “pilot” as a requirement. The primary requirements were familiarity with parachutes and diving equipment. As it turns out, many, but not all, of the early cosmonauts were military pilots because they had familiarity with parachutes and ejection systems. The familiarity with diving equipment was added with the feeling that such training would make it easier for the cosmonaut to handle pressure changes and handling breathing equipment. Unlike the American Mercury capsule, which was built from first principles as a spaceship, the Vostok capsule was conceptually an extension of the Sputnik idea. Vostok was a payload — a capsule that happened to have a human aboard. In fact, Vostok 1 was first labeled as Sputnik-Vostok 1. Later Vostok capsules, and the Voskhod program which followed Vostok, were more capable spacecraft.
The venerable R-7 rocket, which was a very poor ICBM (it took too long to fuel and ready for launch), became a staple for the Soviet, and later Russian, space program. The R-7 launched Sputnik, Vostok, and a derivative of the R-7 is still used to day as the Soyuz rocket. The R-7 family of rockets has become a workhorse launch booster and is one of the most successful rocket designs ever constructed. It isn’t the neatest or most efficient of rockets, but it works well and is a tribute to its designer Sergei Korolev.
As I mentioned with yesterday’s entry, James Harford has an excellent book about Sergei Korolev and the early days of the Soviet space program, including Vostok 1. It is quite good reading for anyone with an interest in seeing what was going on behind the iron curtain at this time. Very few people outside of the agencies involved in the Soviet space program had any idea what was really going on. The program was conducted in almost absolute secrecy, with that secrecy only broken to herald Soviet achievements.
-Astroprof
Images courtesy of Wikimedia
Astroprof’s Page » Seven Wonders? on July 19, 2007 at 4:39 pm: 1
[…] 2) Vostok 1: The first human in space, Yuri Gagarin. […]
Karen on July 24, 2007 at 4:48 am: 2
i can understand why Gagarin wasn’t given control of the craft - no-one was really sure how he would react psychologically (+ there was the paranoia of defection). but it’s said by a few sources that Korolev and one of the launch pad officials gave Gagarin the code he needed to release Vostok’s controls from automatic to manual.
Deborah Cadbury’s “Space Race” book is good on this and what went on behind the scenes with the amazing Korolev and the risk that was Vostok; also worth checking out is the wonderful “Starman” by Jamie Doran, a biography about Gagarin - Doran enumerates and evaluates all the myths surrounding this first flight.
Astroprof’s Page » The Legacy of Sputnik on October 4, 2007 at 4:37 pm: 3
[…] Not long after the United States entered space with Explorer 1, NASA was created as a civilian agency. The Army Ballistic Missile Agency, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and other facilities were transfered to the new civilian agency, along with Wernher von Braun and his team. Soon, plans were laid to put humans into space. The Soviets beat us to that, too, but we eventually did put humans into space, and we sent a spacecraft to another planet. […]
joey rudolph on November 24, 2009 at 9:15 am: 4
Yuri Gagarin’s flight was a monumental achievement in the pioneering spirit of space exploration. As Vostok 1 left Earth for orbit, I was born on that very same day in The Bronx in N.Y.C. That coincidence has always given me a sense of a adventure and although my life took a very different route, I felt like I took that ride with him in spirit on that day.
J.gunawardena on November 27, 2009 at 3:31 am: 5
The selection criteria indicated in this article for the 1st astronaut not considered pilots is wrong, for Gagarin was a top shot fighter jet pilot at that time.Being a fighter jet pilot, one is subjected to simulation of space riding strains like: G forces,frequent disorientations from pitching & rolling.Soviet space administrators did consider that.