April 13, 2011

It was fifty years ago on April 12, 1961 that Yuri Gagarin, a Soviet pilot and cosmonaut, became the first human being to journey into the outer space in the Vostok 1 spacecraft taking an orbit around the Earth.
 
It was a period of intense cold war between the Soviet Union (Russia) and the United State of America. The Cold War between these two super powers was manifested in the intense arms and space race. Both these powers used their resources, intelligence and skill to conquer the space and to gather knowledge of the remote planets in the solar system. The space race was initated by the Soviet Union by sending the first artificial satellite ‘Sputnik Zemeli’, meaning ‘travelling companion of the earth’ to orbit the Earth on October 4, 1957. Less than a month after the launch of Sputnik I, the Soviet Union launched its second artificial satellite Sputnik 2 on November 3, 1957.
 
The United States that was taken aback by the rapid strides of the Soviet Union in the space, responded by sending its first earth satellite ‘Explorer 1' on February 1, 1958 and followed it up by sending the next satellite 'Vanguard 1' in March 1958.
 
The successful launching of satellites by both the Soviet Union and the United States inaugurated not only the ‘space age’ but also an intense ‘space race’ between the two superpowers. The rivalry and competition between the Soviet Union and the United States led both the countries to improve on their rocket technology and design of space crafts. Once they succeeded in perfecting the technology of placing the artificial satellites in the space, both countries ventured into the project of sending the first human being into the space. However, prior to sending humans into the space, both the countries first sent carefully monitored dogs and primates into orbit to study the effects of weightlessness on living creatures.

Meanwhile, the United States selected seven astronauts for its Mercury Project with a view to train them before placing them in the earth orbit in the space from Cape Canaveral (Cape Kennedy) during 1961. However, before the Americans could place their first human being in the space, it was the Russians who announced to the world that their Cosmonaut, Yuri Gagarin ventured into the space and took an orbit around the earth in the space on April 12, 1961 to the dismay and disbelief of the Americans.
 
Colonel Yuri A Gagarin, popularly called “The Columbus of the Cosmos,” was born on a collective farm in a region west of Moscow, Russia, on March 9, 1934. His father was a carpenter. Gagarin attended the local school for six years and continued his education at vocational and technical schools.
 
Yuri Gagarin joined the Russian Air Force in 1955 and graduated with honours from the Soviet Air Force Academy in 1957. Soon afterwards, he became a military fighter pilot. By 1959, he had been selected for cosmonaut training as part of the first group of Soviet Union’s cosmonauts.
 
Yuri Gagarin flew only one space mission. On April 12, 1961, he became the first human to orbit the Earth. Gagarin's spacecraft, Vostok 1, circled the Earth at a speed of 27,400 kilometres per hour and the flight lasted for 108 minutes. At its highest point, Gagarin was about 200 miles (327 kilometres) above the Earth.
 
Once in orbit, Yuri Gagarin had no control over his spacecraft. Vostok's re-entry was controlled by a computer programme sending radio commands to the space capsule. Although the controls were locked, a key had been placed in a sealed envelope in case an emergency situation made it necessary for Gagarin to take control. As was planned, Cosmonaut Gagarin ejected after re-entry into Earth's atmosphere at an altitude of 20,000 feet and landed by parachute. As pilot of the spaceship Vostok 1, he proved that man could endure the rigors of lift-off, re-entry, and weightlessness.
 
As a result of his historic flight, Yuri Gagarin became an international hero, celebrity and a legend. He was awarded many medals and honours, including “Hero of the Soviet Union”, the nation's highest honour. Colonel Gagarin died on March 27 1968, when the MiG-15 airplane he was piloting crashed near Moscow. He was given a hero's funeral, his ashes interred in the Kremlin Wall. At the time of his death, he was in training for a second space mission.
 
Soon after the Russians sent Yuri Gagarin into space, John F. Kennedy, the then President of the United States committed the United States to landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to earth ‘before the decade is out’. Kennedy believed that such an achievement would show undeniable dominance of the United States on space.
 
Under the Mercury Programme, Commander Alan B. Shepherd Jr. of the US Navy became the first American in space when he orbited the earth on May 5, 1961. As the first American astronaut struggled in space, the Soviet Union sent more men and one woman, Valentina Tereshkova on even longer flights.
 
The space race between the Soviet Union and the United States continued unabated till the United States became successful when on July 20, 1969, the Apollo 11 Lunar Module, nicknamed ‘Eagle’, made the first manned landing on the Moon as Commander Neil Armstrong stepped on the lunar surface. Thereafter, a total of 12 Americans walked on the Moon, a feat that could not be achieved by the Russians.
 
In spite of the later success of the Americans and Russians in the space, the achievement of Yuri Gagarin being the first human being to orbit the Earth, exactly fifty years ago distinguishes him as a pioneer of the space age. In Russia, where Gagarin is still revered as one of the few enduring heroes of the Soviet era, visitors flock to a space exhibition in Moscow featuring a replica of the cosmonaut's Vostok 1 capsule.
 
American space explorers also paid tribute to Gagarin. Former NASA astronaut, Thomas Stafford said Gagarin's flight pushed the boundaries of science and engineering. "There always has to be the first," he said. "And at the time, you know, there was a big competition. I would say here today that without Yuri Gagarin flying, I would probably have not flown to the moon."
 
It is sad that Yuri Gagarin did not live to witness the hundreds who have journeyed to space since his first flight fifty years ago as he was tragically killed in 1968 in a plane crash.
 
In a recent interview, his daughter Elena Gagarina said that her father had always shrugged off the considerable risks he endured during takeoff, orbit and landing, and longed to return to space in one day. "I can imagine how dangerous it was, but it wasn't something he would talk about," she told Andrea Rose of the British Council, a UK cultural organization that is bringing a statue of Gagarin from Moscow to display in London. Elena Gagarina further said, "But after his first flight, he wanted to fly again in space. He wanted to continue his work as a pilot and as a cosmonaut."
 
In spite of his untimely death, Yuri Gagarin remains a globally important figure because of his achievement and his inspirational, if tragically short, life as a carpenter's son who went on to become one of the 20th century's biggest names. Fifty years ago he achieved something that no one could imagine, a breakthrough for mankind and an inspiration to many future astronauts including Wing Commander Rakesh Sharma of India, a former Indian Air Force test pilot, and Cosmonaut who flew into space on 3 April 1984, aboard Soyuz T-11 as part of an Intercosmos Research Team who became the first Indian to travel in space.

Dr Eugene D'Souza - Archives: