18.12.2022
Yuri Gagarin – pilot-cosmonaut of the USSR, Hero of the Soviet Union, Commander of the highest insignia of several states, honorary citizen of many Russian and foreign cities.
Yuri Gagarin – the first man in world history who flew into space. After making a sensational flight, the cosmonaut paid a friendly visit to about 30 countries.
At that time, Gagarin was an idol not only in his homeland, but all over the world. The entire world press wrote about him, and leading politicians and artists sought meetings with him.
To this day, his biography is in great demand, and the peculiarities of his life are of interest to professionals and amateurs alike.
It should be noted that in the biography of Yuri Gagarin there are many mysteries and secrets that we will probably never learn about.
Childhood and adolescence
The childhood of the little Yuri was quite carefree. He played with the village boys, and together with his father often made some handicrafts.
When he was six years old, Gagarin went to school, but due to the outbreak of the Great Patriotic War (1941-1945), he was able to study there only for one year.
After German troops began rapidly occupying Soviet territories, they reached the village of Klushino. The Nazis drove the entire Gagarin family out of the house, and took their eldest child and sister captive.
In 1943, the Red Army liberated Klushino, but the family no longer wanted to live there. The Gagarins moved to Gzhatsk, where Yuri continued his studies at the local school.
Since the future cosmonaut was an extremely inquisitive boy, he was interested in studying all subjects without exception.
In addition to school, he was fond of music and the art of photography.
Education
In 1949 there was a turning point in the biography of Yuri Gagarin: he decided to go to Moscow, because life in Gzhatsk seemed too monotonous to him.
His parents did everything to dissuade their son from going, but it did not work.
Having arrived in the capital, Gagarin stayed with relatives. There Yuri began studying at a trade school and later became seriously interested in basketball. He started going to practice and was soon entrusted the captain’s armband.
In 1951 the guy moved to Saratov, where he continued his studies at a technical college. An interesting fact is that it was in this city that he was first introduced to the sky.
Three years later, Gagarin began to study at the Saratov aeroclub of DOSAAF of the USSR. He practically studied airplanes around the clock, and in the future he saw himself only as a pilot.
In 1955 Yuri made his first flight in his biography. All in all during his study at the flying club he managed to make about 200 flights. After that he was drafted into the army.
Military service
Gagarin served in the military aviation school in Chkalov. Here it is worth noting that according to the recollections of his friends, he was always extremely disciplined and strict with himself.
Naturally, when he was appointed assistant platoon commander, he began to demand the same from his fellow soldiers.
However, not everyone liked it, which is why Gagarin was once seriously beaten. After that he spent a long time in the hospital.
Having recovered from the beatings, he returned to duty again. It is interesting that this incident did not break Yuri at all. Moreover, he did not feel any anger or even resentment towards his comrades.
During this period of his biography, Gagarin had one unpleasant incident that could have completely changed his fate.
The fact is that, despite his virtuoso control of the plane, he could not learn how to land it on the landing strip. During landing the young Yuri Gagarin’s plane kept sticking its nose.
Since at that time there were very strict requirements to students it was decided to expel him from the school.
But the head of the college felt pity to expel a talented boy who was also an excellent student in all subjects. So he tried to understand why such a talented and skillful student could not cope with the landing.
Then he suggested that it might be Gagarin’s short stature that prevented Yuri from having a good angle at the moment of landing.
As a result, the young man was offered to demonstrate his landing once again, preliminarily increasing the height of his chair.
The chief’s assumption turned out to be correct. After making the seat higher in the cockpit, Yuri Gagarin landed the plane without any problems.
In 1957 Gagarin graduated with honors from the college and was sent to the service in Murmansk area. There he managed to fly various military aircraft and rose to the rank of senior lieutenant.
Cosmonautics
While serving in Luostari, Yuri Gagarin heard that the Soviet Air Force was recruiting volunteers to fly into space. In this regard, he wrote a report asking to be enlisted as a candidate.
It is worth noting that the space project was led by the genius engineer and designer Sergei Korolev.
He chose the participants not so much on their merits, as on the physical data. The height of the future astronaut was not to exceed 170 cm and weight – 70 kg. Such requirements were due to restrictions on the “Vostok” spaceship.
In this regard, Gagarin was ideally suited for the role of candidate. His height was 165 cm and his weight was 68 kg.
In short, Yuri Gagarin was among the 20 candidates for the first flight into space.
The choice of the candidate
In the spring of 1960 Gagarin, along with the other candidates, began training hard at a specially equipped base. Each of the participants dreamed of becoming a pioneer in space exploration.
Despite the fierce competition, Yuri managed to win over all his competitors. He never felt envy towards anyone and was equally honest with everyone.
Soon the candidates took part in an anonymous poll, in which each of them had to name the best candidate for a space flight. An interesting fact is that almost all participants indicated Yuri Gagarin.
Although he was not the leader of the group, he had a number of qualities necessary for an astronaut and was extremely stable psychologically.
That is, at the most critical moment, Gagarin was able to soberly assess any situation and make the most accurate decisions.
Because of this, Korolev decided to choose him. Yuri’s candidacy was ideal also because he had a distinctly Slavic appearance and had an impeccable biography.
Because he came from a peasant family, he was also ideologically perfect.
After all, then the whole world community would know that in the Soviet Union, even an ordinary man could become a cosmonaut.
In one interview, Gagarin’s mother confessed that her son aroused Korolev’s sympathy because he was honest with him about everything.
Once, when the topic came up about the centrifuge, Yuri said that he felt bad about it. At the same time, the other participants claimed that they were doing fine in the centrifuge.
Korolev immediately understood and appreciated the fact that the guy honestly admitted his weaknesses and shortcomings.
It was very important for the head of the space program to get frank answers from the cosmonaut. The pilot had to report the true facts about any situation, and not try to “play nice with a bad game”.
After all, it was a daring unheard of for science – an attempt of a man to go beyond the earth into outer space. Therefore, the error factor was to be reduced to zero.
The First Spaceflight
The Vostok spaceship flight was accompanied by serious risks for Yuri Gagarin.
Since the country’s leadership required to launch the rocket as soon as possible, the designers did not have time to fully equip it. Vostok” lacked systems for soft landing and emergency rescue of a cosmonaut.
On April 12, 1961, at 09:07 Moscow time, the long-awaited launch was performed from the Baikonur Cosmodrome. Before the rocket lifted off, Gagarin exclaimed: “Let’s go!”.
Soon the first technical problems were reported. It turned out that the ship had risen 100 km above the design point. If the braking system had failed, it could have taken weeks for Yuri Gagarin to return to Earth.
During this time, he could have starved to death, since there was a limited food supply on board the ship.
After being in space for less than 2 hours, Yuri Gagarin did not have no trouble coming back down to Earth. It is interesting that the “Vostok” spaceship, due to a deviation from the set course, landed not in the planned place.
However, the most important thing was that Yuri Gagarin was in space and came back safe and sound.
During the flight, Gagarin conducted the simplest experiments: he drank, ate, and made notes with a pencil. “Putting” the pencil next to him, he accidentally discovered that it instantly began to float away. From this, Gagarin concluded that pencils and other objects in space are better tied down.
He recorded all his observations on the onboard tape recorder.
Here we should mention another interesting fact. The fact is that before the first human space flight, it was not known how the human psyche will behave in space.
As a result, there was a special protection against the first astronaut in a fit of insanity would not try to control the flight of the ship or ruin the equipment.
To activate manual control, he had to open a sealed envelope, inside which there was a sheet with a mathematical problem which, when solved, yielded a code to unlock the control panel.
World Fame
Thanks to his successful flight into space, Yuri Gagarin became an international star in an instant. On April 14, 1961, a tremendous celebration was organized in honor of Cosmonaut No. 1.
In the main streets of all Soviet cities one could see a lot of joyful people who could not hold back their tears of happiness. On television, newscasters would ceaselessly talk about what a feat their fellow countryman had accomplished.
In addition, the United States actually admitted that it had lost the space race to the Soviet Union. In short, at that point in time, the Soviet people felt real euphoria and pride in their achievements.
It was all the more incredible because only 16 years had passed since the end of World War II, and Soviet science was able to make such a giant leap.
After the successful flight into space, everything changed drastically in Yuri Gagarin’s biography. He was promoted to the rank of major, and he went with the Peace Mission to various nations.
Wherever Yuri Alekseyevich visited, his arrival became a real holiday. It is interesting that all the people who were lucky enough to interact with Gagarin spoke of him as a polite, simple and positive person.
It is worth noting that thanks to the personal qualities and natural charm of Yuri Gagarin, the Soviet Union managed to strengthen its image on the world stage.
After Gagarin’s tragic death, Valentina chose to remain alone, remaining loyal to her husband.
Gagarin’s death
On March 27, 1968, during a scheduled flight, Yuri Gagarin, along with his instructor Vladimir Seregin, died. Subsequently, the bodies of the pilots were cremated and their urns with the ashes were buried in the Kremlin wall.
The investigation put forward several versions of the crash. Many experts tended to think that the crew crashed as a result of an abrupt maneuver in difficult weather conditions.
It should be noted that there were no foreign substances in the blood of the pilots.
Different conspiracy theories soon emerged. According to these rumors, the special services deliberately killed Yuri Gagarin by putting him on a malfunctioning plane.
There were also many who argued that the cosmonaut survived, and the crash was nothing more than a well-planned staging.
Not so long ago, some documents concerning the deaths of Gagarin and Seregin were declassified.
In 2013, cosmonaut Alexei Leonov shared previously classified information with journalists. Without making any assertions, he said that for unknown reasons, a military fighter jet flying at supersonic speed suddenly came close to the pilots’ plane.
It drove MiG-15UTI into a spiral with airstream and the pilots did not have enough time to get out of it. However, these words should be treated with caution, as they are not supported by any reliable facts.
Personal life
In 1957, Yuri Gagarin married Valentina Ivanovna Goryacheva, who worked in the Medical Department of the Mission Control Center.
In their marriage they had 2 girls: Elena (1959) and Galina (1961).
One way or another, but the biography of Yuri Gagarin and his contribution to the development of space science forever went down in history as an example to follow.
His charming smile became a symbol of the whole space era, and remains so to this day.
