The world remembers Yuri Gagarin - the first human space flight

[malaise]

http://www.google.com.jm/

Very cool!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-13046190
<snip>
Russia is celebrating the 50th anniversary of the first human space flight when cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin completed a single orbit of Earth.

It will be marked by ceremonies and a 50-gun salute at the Kremlin in Moscow.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said it was a "revolutionary" event that changed the world.

Gagarin's achievement earned him instant global stardom, and dispelled fears humans could not survive beyond the Earth's atmosphere.

[leveymg]

1. The real fear was of cooked ham in a can during reentry. A VERY brave man.

Take a look at the space capsule the guy strapped himself into, and you'll see what I mean:

[Lyric]

2. That actually happened to Yuri's dear friend and fellow cosmonaut.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladimir_Komarov

Edit: Or to be more accurate, he was killed after his parachutes failed to deploy properly and he crashed and burned after successfully re-entering. :(

[Octafish]

14. NPR's Krulwich reported on the tragedy...

Cosmonaut Crashed Into Earth 'Crying In Rage'

The Cosmonauts are Brave Heroes of Humanity.

[malaise]

5. He sure was brave

:hi:

[leveymg]

8. We need to be brave to take that great big leap forward - politically, or America and much of the

world is headed for spam in a can burnout.

Next time, there will be no soft landing - we have to take back control of this bird and override the malfunctioning computers and the odds-makers in Vegas and short-sellers on Wall Street who are now calculating their earnings from selling off the burned wreckage for scrap.

[muriel_volestrangler]

7. Re-entry was pretty dicey - the re-entry capsule remained tethered to the equipment module

for 10 minutes longer than it was meant to:

07:25 UTC
The spacecraft's automatic systems bring it into the required attitude (orientation) for the reentry engine firing, and shortly afterwards, the engine firing occurs. This takes place over the west coast of Africa, near Angola, about 8000 km from the desired landing point. The liquid-fueled retrorockets fire for about 42 seconds.

Ten seconds after retrofire, commands aree sent to separate the Vostok service module from the reentry module, but the Vostok equipment module unexpectedly remains attached to the reentry module by a bundle of wires.

Around 07:35 UTC
The two halves of the spacecraft begin reentry and go through strong gyrations as Vostok 1 crosses over Egypt. At this point the wires break, the two modules separate, and the descent module settles into the proper reentry attitude. Gagarin telegraphs "Everything is OK" despite continuing gyrations. He later reports that he did not want to 'make a noise' because he had (correctly) reasoned that the gyrations did not pose a danger to the mission (and were apparently caused by the spherical shape of the reentry module).

http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/Gagarin/SEMH5H3UFLG_2.html

[leveymg]

9. Similar problem for Glenn in Friendship 7. Heatshield separated prematurely, and they had to rely o

the straps holding on the retrorocket assembly to keep the shield in place.

Were they brave, or just crazy in a heroic sort of way? Guess someone had to do the R&D to find the design errors.

Interesting that Glenn got torpedoed by the Keating S&L scandal, but McCain survived. Is there any justice in American politics?

[lunatica]

3. I remember that famous flight

It also lit a fire under our US of A asses.

[malaise]

6. I remember my father celebrating the event and his mother

ridiculing the idea of men in space

[Erose999]

4. It is likely that Yuri wasn't the first man in space, he was just the first to make it there and bac

I know Cracked isn't a super reliable source, but:

http://www.cracked.com/article_19142_5-soviet-space-programs-that-prove-russia-was-insane.html

I'm pretty sure our own space program was just as insane. I mean at the time we landed on the moon, pocket calculators were the cutting edge of technology. The command module of the Apollo missions had only a couple K more ram than the servers at Freep.

[n2doc]

12. "couple K more ram than the servers at Freep"

LOL! Bet they use the same software!

[Octafish]

15. X-15 pilots made it to the edge of space...

X-15 Hypersonic Research Program



A fellow gets strapped into a rocket plane, then dropped from a B-52...

[n2doc]

10. It's Yuri's Night!

see
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=228x77835

[malaise]

11. Cool

:hi:

[Blue_Tires]

13. my contribution:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x865682

[Octafish]

16. Wow!

Thank you very much, Blue_Tires!

[malaise]

18. Great thread

I kicked it back to the top :hi:

[n2doc]

17. Soviet Space Propaganda: Doctored Cosmonaut Photos

By James Oberg April 12, 2011



Lies and half-truths have a way of catching up to you, largely because nobody has a good enough memory to be a successful liar for long. The Soviet side of the 1960s space race is a particularly graphic example of this.

The Soviet Union's string of space triumphs over the United States was tarnished by a series of falsifications that surfaced and cast doubt on all their accomplishments, even the genuine ones. Today on the 50th anniversary of the Yuri Gagarin's first spaceflight, the greatest of the Soviet space triumphs, there are still plenty of unresolved doubts and suspicions.

Those doubts are encouraged by a series of photographs of the cosmonaut team, released in the 1970s, in which some individuals have been airbrushed out of scenes. The photo-doctoring was discovered because Soviet news managers lost track of which versions of photos had already been published, and re-released them after alteration.

These group shots of cosmonauts at work and on vacation included some as-yet unflown men. Apparently the subsequent bad behavior — or possibly victimization — of some of them rendered them unfit role models for Soviet youth, and they were erased (as shown above). These men would have been total strangers to the public, the fact that they never later appeared on space missions would seem to suggest that something bad had happened, something that had to be kept secret.

more
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/04/soviet-space-propaganda/

[Lydia Leftcoast]

19. I remember that day: We were sitting at the dinner table

when the news came over the radio. My father told us, "I want you all to remember this. This is an important day in human history."

Well, Dad, I do remember.

[Starry Messenger]

20. k&r

[Octafish]

21. Gagarin photos from Christian Science Monitor...

http://www.csmonitor.com/CSM-Photo-Galleries/In-Pictures/Space-Photos-of-the-Day/Space-photos-of-the-day-Yuri-Gagarin