Gagarin Orbits Earth
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NASA
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Yuri Gagarin traveling to the launch pad on the morning of April 12, 1961. Behind him is seated his backup, German Titov.
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On April 12, 1961, Soviet Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin was launched into space aboard his spacecraft Vostok 1 from the Baykonur site in the Soviet Union. Gagarin’s flight was historic, not just for the Soviet space program, but for all space programs because he was the first human to orbit Earth.
Yuri Gagarin was born on March 9, 1934, in a small village called Klushino, now renamed Gagarin, near Moscow in the Soviet Union. His father was a carpenter and both his parents worked on a farm. Gagarin studied math and physics while in high school and graduated in 1949. After high school, he trained to be a steelworker at a trade school, and then went to a technical school in Saratov. While at that school, he joined a flying club and learned how to fly a plane.
Gagarin decided that instead of becoming a steelworker, he wanted to be a pilot. In 1955, he joined the Orenburg Higher Air Force School. Two years later, he graduated, and became a lieutenant in the Soviet Air Force. His natural skills as a pilot singled him out for space travel. In 1959, Gagarin was chosen as one of a group of 20 test pilots for space training. The Soviet cosmonauts (in the Soviet Union, an astronaut is called a cosmonaut) had to pass very difficult physical and mental tests, including spending time in a small room where they could not see, hear, touch, taste, or smell, and solving math problems while a loudspeaker blasted out answers. Gagarin was very calm and smart, and was always the best at every test.
On April 3, 1961, the Soviet government decided that it was time to send a cosmonaut into space. Gagarin was chosen to be the pilot of the mission and German Titov was chosen as his backup.
On the morning of April 12, 1961, Gagarin and Titov traveled to the launch pad in Baykonur. Gagarin climbed into his spacecraft, Vostok 1. A multi-stage rocket fired and at 9:07 a.m. Moscow time, the spacecraft lifted off.
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NASA
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Vostok 1’s mission plan
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Vostok 1 had two parts. One section held a seat for the cosmonaut and the other section held the spacecraft’s rocket and supplies such as oxygen and water. Although the flight was scheduled to be a little more than two hours, Gagarin carried food and water with him in case of retro-rocket failure.
While in orbit, Gagarin had no control over his spacecraft. Instead, all the spacecraft’s actions, including reentry were controlled by a computer. This was because no one knew how a person would react while in space, and the Soviet scientists were afraid that Gagarin would lose control over the spacecraft, thus endangering himself and the mission. However, in case of an emergency, Soviet scientists had placed a key in an envelope that would unlock the controls.
After liftoff, the spacecraft climbed to an orbit around Earth at an apogee (high point) of 187 miles (302 kilometers) and a perigee (low point) of 109 miles (175 kilometers). At 9:22 a.m., Gagarin radioed (called), and said that he was over South America and felt well. He also said "I see Earth. It’s so beautiful!," which are the first words ever spoken by a person from space. Gagarin was traveling at 16,777 miles (27,000 kilometers) per hour, and by 10:15 a.m. had reached Africa. Soon after, the retro-rocket aboard Vostok 1 fired and began taking the spacecraft out of orbit. Soviet scientists were very happy because in two of the five test flights, the retro-rockets had failed to work. Once out of orbit, Vostok 1 slowed down by 350 miles (563 kilometers) per hour and the equipment section was released. Gagarin’s capsule sped down through Earth’s atmosphere. It was so hot outside the capsule that Gagarin could see flames through the window!
When Gagarin was about 4 miles (7 kilometers) above the Earth, he ejected (exited) from the capsule, and parachuted safely to the surface. He had to parachute before the spacecraft landed because it was traveling so quickly that he could not have survived the landing if he was inside.
Vostok 1 landed in the Saratov region of the Soviet Union at 10:55 a.m. Gagarin’s trip had lasted just 108 minutes, but during it he made history by becoming the first person to complete a single orbit of Earth.
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NASA
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Yuri Gagarin shakes hands with Edward White and James McDivitt, U.S. astronauts in the Gemini space program
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After the success of Vostok 1, Gagarin became very famous. He traveled around the world, meeting lots of different people, but soon started to tire of his new celebrity role. In 1963, he became the deputy director of the Cosmonaut Training Center, and worked on designs for reusable spacecraft. However, he wished to fly in space again saying "being a cosmonaut is my profession, and I did not choose it just to make the first flight and then give it up." In 1967 he was chosen as a backup pilot for the first Soyuz flight.
Tragically, the following year, on March 27, 1968, Gagarin was killed when a plane he was testing crashed near Moscow. At the time, he was training for his second space mission. He was buried with honors at the Kremlin Wall in Moscow’s Red Square. A crater on the far side of the Moon was named in his honor and he earned the name "The Columbus of the Cosmos" for being the first person to travel to space.
Four years before Gagarin's flight, on October 4, 1957, the Soviet space program became the first to successfully launch a satellite, Sputnik 1, into space. The United States had attempted to launch a satellite, but did not succeed until January 1958. The Soviet space program was very advanced for its time. Not only did it succeed in launching the first satellite and the first person into space--ten months before the United States sent a U.S. astronaut into orbit--but it also launched the first two-spacecraft mission and the first woman into space. The Soviet scientists were also the first to draw maps of the far side of the Moon from information gathered by their space probe Luna 3.
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NASA
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Sputnik 1 was the first human-made object launched into space.
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The successes of the Soviet space program helped to fuel the space race between the United States and the Soviet Union. After the launch of Sputnik 1 and Gagarin’s flight, it appeared as if the Soviet Union would win the space race. In response to this, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) was established in 1958 to help the United States explore space. U.S. President John F. Kennedy also announced that he wanted the U.S. to land a man on the Moon by the end of the 1960s. At the time of the president’s speech in May 1961, the total amount of time spent in space by a U.S. astronaut was just 15 minutes!
Although the Soviet space program did not succeed in being the first country to land a man on the Moon, it had many other achievements, including the successful launches of the space stations Salyut and Mir. After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the friendship between the United States and Russia (which had been part of the Soviet Union), became much stronger. Today, both countries work together to explore space.
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Writing Prompt
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Read more about the space race at the following website . If there had been no space
race, do you think that the United States would have been the first nation to land a man on the Moon?
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Elementary School Links
Other Web Sites
NASA: Yuri Gagarin-
Russian Archives Online: Yuri Gagarin -
National Air and Space Museum: Space Race -
University of North Dakota: The Russian Space Programs -
The Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center -