Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin was born on 9 March 1934 in the village of Klushino near Gzhatsk (now in Smolensk Oblast, Russia). His parents, Alexei Ivanovich Gagarin and Anna Timofeyevna Gagarina, worked on a collective farm.Some sources state that Yuri’s father was a carpenter, Yuri was the third child in the four children that his parents had.
Yuri was taken care of by her elder sister while his parents used to be out on work.
At 16, Yuri moved to Moscow While there, he joined the ‘AeroClub’, and learned to fly light aircraft, a hobby that would take up an increasing part of his time. . In 1955 Yuri entered flight training at the Orenburg Military Pilot’s School. He graduated from the Soviet Air Force cadet school in 1957, and began serving as a fighter pilot.Yuri married valentina and they both had two daughters.
To the world before the day of 12 April 1961 Yuri was unknown but after the announcement he became a hero.
The historic 108-minute flight, orbiting once around Earth, made Gagarin the first human in space, and an international hero. He was only 27 years old.
This must have been an electrifying moment for the people at that time as the announcement was made:
“The world’s first spaceship, Vostok, with a man on board, was launched into orbit from the Soviet Union on 12 April 1961. The pilot space-navigator of the satellite-spaceship Vostok is a citizen of the USSR, Flight Major Yuri Gagarin.”
His feat was amazing at the time. Latter NASA rushed to get an astronaut into space and, in May 1961 Alan Shepard became the first US astronaut.
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Two days after the return of Vostok 1, Gagarin was back in Moscow, where he appeared on the balcony of the Kremlin with Premier Nikita Khrushchev. Forty-eight hours earlier, he was unknown; now he was arguably the most famous man on Earth.
Flight Details.
On April 12, 1961, at 9:07 a.m. Moscow time, the Vostok 1 spacecraft blasted off from the Soviets’ launch site Baikonur cosmodrome. After the take off he uttered the surprisingly informal,but immediately iconic exclamation “Poyekhali!” (Translation: “Let’s go!”)
Over the course of 108 minutes, Vostok 1 traveled around the Earth once, reaching a maximum height of 203 miles (327 kilometers).Over Africa, the engines fired to bring Gagarin back to Earth. The craft carried ten days worth of provisions in case If the engines failed and Gagarin was required to wait for the orbit to naturally decay, but they were unnecessary As Gagarin re-entered Earth’s atmosphere, experiencing forces up to eight times the pull of gravity, but he remained conscious. Gagarin ejected before landing, parachuting down safely near the Volga River
The could landing have ended in a near-disaster as the cables joining the Vostok’s descent module and service module failed to separate properly, causing massive shaking as the spacecraft re entered Earth’s atmosphere. Vostok 1 circled Earth at a speed of 27,400 kilometers per hour. The flight lasted 108 minutes. Vostok’s reentry was controlled by a computer. Yuri Gagarin did not land inside of Vostok 1. He ejected from the spacecraft and landed by parachute.
Tragic End Of the Flight Major.
On 27 March 1968, while on a routine training flight from Chkalovsky Air Base, he and flight instructor Vladimir Seryogin died in a MiG-15UTI crash near the town of Kirzhach that is only Less than a year after he can back from an amphibious operation.Gagarin’s ashes were placed in a niche in the Kremlin wall, while his hometown of Gzhatsk was renamed Gagarin in his honor.
More over a lunar crater (crater on moon) and asteroid 1772 Gagarin are named in his honour
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Truly he was humanities leap into a new age his courage for this amphibious operation is beyond explanationhe made humanity to feel the mesmerizing power of science and engineering and freed them from their baseless superstitions.
Happy International Day of Human Space Flight and of course a yuri’s night.
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Sources/references
- Wikipedia
- Old news records
- Featured image Yuri Gagarin National Geographic.
