Amid a dispute for technological supremacy, the United States and the Soviet Union began a space race to prove which of the two nations had the technological development necessary to take mankind into space. While we all know of Neil Armstrong’s feat of being the first man to set foot on the Moon, few know of the legacy of Yuri Gagarin, the first man to reach space.
On April 12, 1961, the astronaut embarked on his journey to Earth orbit, lasting approximately 108 minutes inside the Soviet Union’s Vostok spacecraft. After his flight where he became the first man to reach space, Gagarin became a national hero, leaving a legacy that even more than six decades after his feat, is celebrated in the most important museums of what is now Russia.
His arrival in space came at a crucial moment in the middle of the space race in which the United States and the Soviet Union had entered. The latter had already sent the first artificial satellite named Sputnik in October 1957 and now came to reaffirm its legacy, putting the first man in space.
At 09:07 local Moscow time, the Vostok 1 spacecraft made its liftoff into space, and because the effects of weightlessness were unknown, the spherical capsule had few controls onboard. That is, the operation was performed both automatically and controlled from the ground. However, the engineers in charge decided that, in case an emergency arose, Gagarin would be provided with an override code that would allow him to take manual control.
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The operation was so risky that Sergei Korolev, chief designer of the space program, skipped the protocols and gave the code to the pilot before the flight. When the 108 minutes of overflight in space orbit had elapsed, Gagarin managed to remain conscious after experiencing up to eight times the forces of gravity’s pull during his descent.
A well-kept secret
During his re-entry to Earth, the first astronaut had no way of controlling the behavior of the spacecraft, which was still too austere for such purposes, so at an altitude of 7 kilometers, Gagarin shot out, and eventually, a parachute was triggered to bring him safely back to terra firma. But according to the International Aeronautical Federation, to be considered a man’s first space voyage, Gagarin would have to remain inside the spacecraft from the start until his arrival on Earth. For this reason, the Soviet Union concealed the astronaut’s ejection until 1971.
In any case, Yuri Gagarin became the first man to reach space, in the middle of a space race that gave the Soviet Union a great posture, until 1969, when Neil Armstrong became the first man to set foot on the Moon.
Text courtesy of Ecoosfera
