18.12.2022
Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin is a pilot-cosmonaut of the USSR, the first earthling to go into space, a Hero of the Soviet Union.
On April 12, 1961 Yuri Gagarin flew into space on the Vostok-1 spacecraft launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome. After 108 minutes of flight Yuri Gagarin successfully landed in Saratov region.
The cosmonaut became a model and a legend not only for the citizens of the USSR, but also he is an honorable citizen of foreign cities and an international public figure. Yuri Alekseyevich opened a new page in the exploration of space and became a symbol of the development of Soviet science and aviation. As a world celebrity Gagarin visited about 30 countries at the invitation of foreign governments and public organizations.
Yuri Gagarin was a colonel in the Air Force of the USSR (1963), military pilot 1st class, Honored Master of Sports of the USSR (1961), a member of the Central Committee of Komsomol, deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of the 7th and 8th convocations. On March 27, 1968 Yuri Gagarin died in a plane crash in Vladimir region while performing a training flight on MiG-15UTI.
Early years and education of Yuri Gagarin
Yuri Alexeyevich Gagarin was born on March 9, 1934, according to documents in the village of Klushino in the Gzhatsk district of the Western Region of the RSFSR. (The Western oblast with its center in Smolensk was formed on October 1, 1929, by the Resolution of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of the USSR of January 14, 1929, No. 116 “On the Formation within the RSFSR of Administrative and Territorial Associations of Krai and Oblast significance”, now the Smolensk Oblast.)
The Gagarins’ family were peasants. They had four children. Yura was the third child.
His father – Alexei Ivanovich Gagarin (1902-1973) – worked as a carpenter.
His mother – Anna Timofeevna Matveeva (1903-1984) – was a dairy farm worker. She was awarded the Order of the Red Banner of Labor and the Friendship of Peoples.
His maternal grandfather, Timofey Matveevich Matveev (1871-1918), a worker at the Putilov plant, worked as a borer and was a revolutionary.
Yury’s childhood passed quietly. His parents paid much attention to their children. His father loved to do woodwork and introduced his children to it.
At 6, Yura went to school, but a year later the war began. The Germans reached Klushino, the village was occupied for a year and a half. Gagarin, already a famous person, preferred never to recall the grim days of the occupation. It is known that the Nazis took away his brother and sister. Fortunately, they returned alive from Germany.
After the war ended, the Gagarins moved to Gzhatsk. In this city Yuri Gagarin continued his studies.
In 1949, the fifteen-year-old Gagarin decided to go to Moscow. The Gagarins had relatives in the capital, and the boy lived with them, entering a trade school. At the same time, he studied at a school for working youth, according to Yuri Gagarin’s biography on Wikipedia.
In 1951, Yuri entered the Saratov Industrial College. During his studies, the young man enrolled in the amateur aviation club. There he first learned about astronautics, got acquainted with the works of Konstantin Tsiolkovsky. Yuri literally fell in love with the idea of flying into space.
In 1955 Gagarin graduated from technical school. But he continued to be a member of an amateur aviation club and had already managed to make several flights on his own in a small training aircraft.
Yuri Gagarin’s career in the army
Soon Yuri was called into the army. He was sent to the city of Orenburg to the 1st military aviation school named after K.E. Voroshilov. He was trained by a well-known at the time flight instructor Y.S. Akbulatov. However, Gagarin had a serious conflict there that almost cost the young man his life. The fact is that Gagarin, appointed assistant platoon commander, was extremely strict in terms of discipline, and this did not suit his fellow students. One night he was caught and severely beaten, after which the young man spent a month in hospital before he could return to duty. It is noteworthy that the incident did not break his morale at all, his attitude toward his charges did not change.
Cadet Gagarin was an excellent student, but he was bad at landing the plane. The aircraft kept crashing, and due to the fact that the requirements to students were extremely strict, it was decided to expel Gagarin. But at this point the head of the school, who was troubled by the mysterious failures of the best student, paid attention to the short stature of the guy and suggested that this was the reason why he had problems with the viewing angle during landings. Gagarin was given another chance, and before the flight he was given a padding that increased the seat height. The assumption turned out to be correct.
In 1957 Yuri Gagarin graduated from the college and started serving in Murmansk region.
Yuri Gagarin in the Cosmonaut Squad
The Decree of the CPSU Central Committee and the USSR Council of Ministers on recruiting astronauts and preparing them for their first flight on Vostok-1 spacecraft was adopted in 1959. The Soviet Air Force was responsible for the selection and training of future cosmonauts. It was planned to choose 20 candidates. On December 9, 1959 Yuri Gagarin wrote a report with a request to be enrolled in the group of cosmonaut candidates.
The cosmonaut candidates were selected by a special group of specialists from the Central Military Research Aviation Hospital. Psychologists drew attention to the following features of Gagarin’s character:
– Likes spectacles with active action, where heroics, the will to win, the spirit of competition prevails. In sports games takes the place of the initiator, leader, team captain. As a rule, there is a role of his will to win, endurance, determination, team feeling. His favorite word is “work. Makes sensible suggestions at meetings. Constantly confident in himself and in his abilities. He easily tolerates workouts and works effectively. He is very well-developed. Pure-hearted. He is polite, tactful and punctual. He has a high intellectual development. He has a wonderful memory. He is distinguished among his classmates by a wide volume of active attention, quick wit, and quick reaction. He is assiduous. He is not shy to defend the point of view, which he considers correct.
Yuri Gagarin was summoned to Moscow to undergo a comprehensive medical examination at the Central Research Aviation Hospital. In early 1960 another special medical commission followed, which declared senior lieutenant Gagarin fit for space flights.
Six of the twenty candidates were selected: Yuri Gagarin, German Titov, Grigory Nelyubov, Andriyan Nikolayev, Pavel Popovich and Valery Bykovsky. Between December 1960 and January 1961 six cosmonaut candidates were preparing for their first space flight in Zhukovsky. The Cosmonaut Training Center was already established, but was not yet practically working, so the main training took place in one of the branches of the Flight Research Institute (FRI). Later the Cosmonaut Training Center with all available personnel moved to a permanent location – Zvyozdny. Nearby, near Chkalovskaya station, the first housing stock was created – apartments to accommodate the families of cosmonaut trainees and some of the Cosmonaut Training Center management staff’s families.
The training of cosmonauts was supervised by the famous test pilot, Hero of the Soviet Union Mark Gallai.
All six cosmonaut candidates were allowed to take final examinations on January 17-18, 1961. All of them demonstrated excellent knowledge during examinations. After examining their personal files, characterizations, and examination results, the admissions committee wrote in its act: “We recommend the following order of priority for using cosmonauts in flights: Gagarin, Titov, Nelyubov, Nikolayev, Bykovsky, Popovich.
On January 25, the order of the Commander-in-Chief of the Air Force No. 21, all members of the group were first enlisted as cosmonauts.
On March 23, 1961 Yuri Gagarin was appointed commander of the group.
The historic flight of Yuri Gagarin
On April 12, the spacecraft took off from the Soviet Baikonur Cosmodrome. There were serious equipment malfunctions during the launch, so the spacecraft climbed a hundred kilometers higher than originally planned. Had the braking system malfunctioned, the spacecraft would have been spinning for more than a month, while food and water were only stocked on it for ten days.
At the very beginning of the rocket’s ascent, Gagarin uttered a phrase that became a winged phrase: “Let’s go!” The Vostok rocket worked without any problems. After 108 minutes of flight Gagarin successfully landed in Saratov region, near Engels. On April 12, 1961, the day of Yuri Gagarin’s flight into space was declared a holiday – the Day of Cosmonautics.
The first space flight aroused great interest all over the world, and Yuri Gagarin became an international celebrity.
Yuri Gagarin became the most welcomed guest not only in the Soviet Union, but also in all foreign countries.
In the following years Gagarin conducted a great social and political work. He graduated from the Military Air Engineering Academy named after professor N.E. Zhukovsky, worked at the Cosmonaut Training Center and was preparing for another flight into space.The death of Yuri Gagarin
On March 27, 1968 there was a tragic event. Gagarin died in a training flight on the MiG-15UTI aircraft under the supervision of an experienced instructor V.S. Seryogin near the village of Novoselovo, Kirzhach district, Vladimir region.
To investigate the causes of the crash, the State Commission was created. The report consists of 29 volumes and was classified. The essence of the conclusions of the commission was that the crew, due to change of air conditions during the flight, made a sharp maneuver and left the cloud layer, diving almost vertically. Despite attempts of the pilots to bring the machine into horizontal flight the plane collided with the ground and the crew died. No equipment failures or malfunctions were found during the investigation. Chemical analysis of the remains and blood of the pilots did not reveal any foreign substances.
Wikipedia in the biography of Yuri Gagarin reports that for the 50th anniversary of Gagarin’s flight into space, the conclusions of the State Commission on the possible causes of his death were declassified. According to the Presidential Archives, the most likely cause of the plane’s crash was named as a sharp maneuver to evade the balloon-probe or, less likely, to prevent entry into the upper edge of cloud cover. Under complicated meteorological conditions, this led to the aircraft going into overcritical flight mode and stalling. Investigations by a team of specialists led by S.M. Belotserkovsky showed that the most probable cause of the abrupt maneuver was the approach and a sharp evasion of another aircraft, with possible involvement in its vortex trace. As a consequence, the MiG-15UTI of Gagarin and Sergegin went into a flat spin. Being in a cloudy layer, the pilots could not see the flight altitude. Guided by inaccurate meteorological data and instrument readings, the pilots assumed that they would manage to bring the airplane out of the fall, but the altitude reserve turned out to be insufficient. After leaving the cloud layer, it was too late to eject. In 2013 cosmonaut Alexei Leonov said that as a result of declassification of documents of the investigation committee this version was fully confirmed: the Su-15 unauthorized aircraft was in the zone of cosmonauts’ training flights. Passing through the clouds at a distance of 10-15 meters from Gagarin’s and Sergeyev’s plane, the fighter, which was going at supersonic speed, threw the plane into a spiral, out of which the pilots did not have time. At the same time, A. Leonov’s version has no documentary evidence and is proved by A. Mironov, a member of the committee of investigation.
Private life of Yuri Gagarin
Yuri Gagarin was married to Valentina Ivanovna Gagarina (maiden name Goryacheva [1935-2020]). They married in 1957 in Orenburg. Valentina Gagarina worked in the laboratory of the Medical Directorate of the Mission Control Center. In Orenburg, in the house where Valentina’s family lived, a museum-apartment of Yuri and Valentina Gagarin was later opened.
The family had two daughters: Elena Gagarina (1959) – Director General of the Museum-Reserve “The Moscow Kremlin”, Ph.
Galina Yurievna Gagarina (1961) is a professor, head of the Department of National and Regional Economics at the Plekhanov Russian Academy of Economics. D. in Economics from the Plekhanov Russian Academy of Economics.
Granddaughter Ekaterina Elisbarovna Karavaeva (Elena’s daughter), studied at the History Department of Moscow State University, works, like her mother, in the museum-reserve “The Moscow Kremlin”.
Grandson Yuri Konstantinovich Kondratchik (son of Galina) – PhD in Economics, graduated from the Department of Public Administration of Moscow State University, ran for deputy in 2017 in the Council of Deputies of the municipal district of Khamovniki from the Party of Growth, the director of the airport in Khabarovsk.
Yuri Gagarin’s great-grandson is the son of Yuri’s grandson.
