10 little-known facts about Yuri Gagarin's flight (11 photos)

On April 12, 1961, Yuri Gagarin became the first person in the world to fly into outer space.

1. Yuri Gagarin was escorted to the spaceship by not one, but two understudies.

In addition to the well-known German Titov, the understudy was Grigory Nelyubov. Unlike Gagarin and Titov, he did not wear a spacesuit, but was ready to fly in case of special circumstances.

Nelyubov’s life was tragic: some time after Gagarin’s flight, he was expelled from the cosmonaut corps for violating discipline, and a few years later he died in an accident.

2. Two days before his flight into space, Yuri Gagarin wrote a farewell letter to his wife in case a disaster occurred.

In 1961 this letter was not required. This letter will be given to Gagarin’s wife Valentina Ivanovna after the plane crash on March 27, 1968, in which the first cosmonaut of the Earth died.

3. The Vostok-1 flight took place in fully automatic mode.

This was due to the fact that no one could guarantee that the astronaut would remain functional in zero gravity. As a last resort, Yuri Gagarin was given a special code that allowed him to activate the ship's manual control.

4. Initially, three pre-launch addresses of the “first cosmonaut to the Soviet people” were recorded.

The first was recorded by Yuri Gagarin, and two more by his understudies German Titov and Grigory Nelyubov. In exactly the same way, three texts of the TASS message about the first human flight into space were prepared: in case of a successful flight, in case of a search for an astronaut, and also in case of disaster.

5. Before the flight of Vostok-1, an emergency occurred.

When checking the tightness, the sensor on the hatch did not produce the required signal. Since there was extremely little time left before the launch, such a problem could lead to a postponement of the launch.

Then the leading designer of Vostok-1, Oleg Ivanovsky, and his workers demonstrated fantastic skills, to the envy of today’s Formula 1 mechanics, by unscrewing 30 nuts in a matter of minutes, checking and correcting the sensor, and closing the hatch again in the proper manner. This time the leak test was successful, and the launch was carried out at the scheduled time.

6. During the final stage of the flight, Yuri Gagarin uttered a phrase about which for a long time they preferred not to write anything: “I’m burning, goodbye, comrades!”

The fact is that before Gagarin, no one had a clear idea of what it would look like for a spacecraft to pass through dense layers of the atmosphere during descent. Therefore, Gagarin, like any pilot, seeing a raging flame in the window, assumed that the spaceship was on fire and would die in a few seconds. In fact, the friction of the heat-resistant skin of a spacecraft against the atmosphere is a working moment that occurs during every flight. Now the cosmonauts are ready for this bright and impressive spectacle, which Gagarin was the first to see.

7. The famous footage of the negotiations between Yuri Gagarin in the cockpit of the ship and chief designer Sergei Korolev at the command post is an imitation made at a later period.

However, it’s hardly worth reproaching the participants in the historical event for this - at the moment of the real start, they simply had no time for it. Later, they decided to recreate the missing chronicle by asking Gagarin and Korolev to repeat the same words that they said on April 12, 1961.

8. The Vostok spacecraft did not provide for the landing of cosmonauts inside the descent module: at an altitude of 1500 meters the pilot ejected.

This was due to the fact that the Vostoks did not have soft landing engines, which ensure a safe landing. In addition, experts were afraid of the hatch being “welded” under the influence of high temperatures in the dense layers of the atmosphere.

However, due to landing outside the ship, the International Aeronautical Federation refused to register Gagarin's record flight. And then the Soviet representatives lied, announcing that the first cosmonaut had landed in the cabin. The actual circumstances of the landing were officially recognized by the USSR only in 1964.

9. One of the most heatedly discussed topics related to Gagarin’s flight is the inscription “USSR” on the cosmonaut’s helmet.

It arose due to the fact that in recent years the inscription on Gagarin’s images very often disappears somewhere. In this regard, the question arose - how did it appear on the helmet of the first cosmonaut? Oddly enough, there is no final clarity on this issue either. Hero of the Soviet Union, test pilot Mark Gallay, who trained the first cosmonauts and was present at Gagarin’s launch, said in his book “With a Man on Board” that the inscription appeared at the very last moment. Allegedly, 20 minutes before Gagarin left for the start, they remembered the spy flight of the American Powers that had happened before and decided to put the letters “USSR” on the helmet so that the cosmonaut would not be confused with a saboteur. The letters were drawn in a hurry, without removing the helmet from Gagarin’s head.

At the same time, veterans of the Zvezda enterprise, which produces spacesuits for cosmonauts, claim that the inscription was applied while the spacesuit was being prepared for flight, in advance, and even indicate the name of the worker who completed this task - Davidyants.

10. One of the most memorable details about the first manned space flight was... shoelaces.

As Yuri Gagarin walked along the carpet before reporting to Nikita Khrushchev on the successful completion of the flight, the untied laces on the first cosmonaut’s shoe were caught in the frame. This everyday detail only added to the people's love for Gagarin. Meanwhile, Sergei Khrushchev, the son of Nikita Khrushchev, who was present at that ceremony, assures that Gagarin’s laces were in order. The space hero was let down by his sock brace. Previously, socks were made without elastic bands, and suspenders were worn on the calves to prevent the socks from slipping down. This rubber band came loose on one of Gagarin’s legs, and the iron buckle hit him on the leg.