Buran-Energia

50 years ago day to day at 09h07 the Vostok rocket brought on board the first space traveler, Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin. His flight was short (one orbit of 108 minutes), indeed nobody knew at that time how the human body will act in weightlesness, is it possible to breath, is it possible to drink… This is why the flight was to be the shortest possible. The Gagarin’s mission was to be the first to go to the unknown and simply see if men could live in weightlesness, thus, his first words were « I’m feeling ok ! ».

At the end of his orbit the Vostok spacecraft automatically began its descent in the atmosphere, then the ejection system of his seat trigerred at 7000m height and Gagarin was catapulted outside his spacecraft to land under his parachute. The people of the Saratov village near by were first scared by the man in spacesuit (they first saw he was an American pilot shoot down by the defence) then they come in mass to welcome the man coming from nowhere. During years the Soviet authorities kept secret the fact that Gagarin, and all the cosmonauts of the Vostok program, were ejected of the spacecraft because it didn’t have a soft landing system, but for a record to be ratified the pilot must land within his spacecraft. But the facts are there, Gagarin was the first man to orbit Earth.

Those 108 minutes of flight made Gagarin a national Hero and a Hero of mankind. The space travels were too dangerous at that time and the authorities forbidden him to flight again, it was also forbidden for him to pilot a plane, he was too precious. During the years that followed his flight he visited more than 25 countries and participated to numerous receptions, but he wanted only one thing, going back into space. After harsh discussions he obtained the authorisation to flight a MIG-15, but it was the last plane he ever flown. He died at the age of 34 on mars 27, 1968 with his instructor Vladimir Seriogine in strange conditions that are not all known, after his plane become unstable.

Since 50 years spaceships and rockets have been improved, and now it is possible to make long duration stay of 6 months and more inside the international space station, where the picture of Gagarin sit enthroned in the command module, which is Russian, but the irony of History wants that the cosmonauts of today still go up in a rocket similar of the Gagarin’s Vostok, the Soyuz.

Поехали !!

Reporting broadcasted by TV Roscomos about the flight of Gagarin: