On April 12, Russia celebrates Cosmonautics Day, and the whole world celebrates International Aviation and Cosmonautics Day. This holiday is timed to coincide with the first date of manned space flight.
As you know, the first person to fly into space was the Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Alekseevich Gagarin. Almost sixty years have passed since then, but Russia remains one of the world leaders in space exploration. And that is why Cosmonautics Day in our country may well be considered not a narrowly professional, but a national holiday.
On April 12, 1961, Senior Lieutenant Yuri Gagarin flew around the Earth in orbit on the Vostok-1 spacecraft for the first time in world history. This is how the era of active space exploration through manned space flights began. Yuri Gagarin gained worldwide fame, and in his homeland his merits were marked with the Gold Star of the Hero of the Soviet Union and the early conferred the rank of major.
The Soviet Union prepared very carefully for sending a man into space. The selection of candidates for cosmonauts took place under the personal supervision of Sergei Pavlovich Korolev, chief designer of the Special Design Bureau No. 1 of the State Committee of the Council of Ministers of the USSR for Defense Technology. Korolyov was convinced that a professional military pilot of jet fighter aircraft should fly into space. There were also criteria for age, external data, health. It goes without saying that health had to be ideal, age - about thirty years, height - no more than 170 cm, weight - up to 68-70 kg. In the cosmonaut corps, which trained specialists for spacewalk, two potential candidates immediately emerged.
Senior Lieutenant Yuri Alekseevich Gagarin was 27 years old. Coming from a peasant family, he graduated from the 1st Military Aviation School of Pilots named after K. E. Voroshilov in Chkalov (now Orenburg), served in the naval aviation, in the 769th Fighter Aviation Regiment of the 122nd Fighter Aviation Division of the Northern Fleet Air Force. By the end of 1959, Senior Lieutenant Gagarin had flown 265 hours and had the qualification of a military pilot of the 3rd class.
Yuri Gagarin's backup German Stepanovich Titov, who also wore the senior lieutenant's shoulder straps, was slightly younger than Gagarin - he was 25 years old. After being drafted into the army, he graduated from the 9th Military Aviation Pilot School in Kustanai and the Stalingrad Military Aviation School of Pilots named after I. Red Banner Stalingrad proletariat in Novosibirsk, after which he served in the 26th Guards Aviation Regiment of the Air Force of the Leningrad Military District.
In addition to Gagarin and Titov, Grigory Nelyubov, Andriyan Nikolaev, Pavel Popovich and Valery Bykovsky were also included in the top six Soviet cosmonauts. All of them were pilots of the Air Force and Aviation of the USSR Navy, distinguished by excellent health, high-quality training and, no less important, determination and a sincere desire to fly into space. Ultimately, the leadership leaned towards choosing Yuri Gagarin as the first person to be sent into space by the Soviet Union. Of course, the young officer's natural charisma, his famous "Gagarin" smile, and his "simple" origin played a role - Gagarin was ideally suited for the role of the first cosmonaut.
On January 25, 1961, the Commander-in-Chief of the USSR Air Force ordered the enrollment of all six members of the group as Air Force cosmonauts. On March 23, 1961, Yuri Gagarin was appointed the commander of the cosmonaut corps. This appointment alone testified to the confidence that the command had in the young senior lieutenant. Indeed, older officers were also subordinate to Gagarin - if Gagarin was born in 1934, then Andriyan Nikolaev was born in 1929, and Pavel Popovich was born in 1930.
The accelerated pace of organizing the first space flight was due to the fact that Sergei Korolyov was very worried about whether the Americans would fly before us. Korolev had information at his disposal that the United States was preparing to launch a man into space on April 20, 1961. Therefore, it was decided to schedule the start of the Soviet spacecraft in the second decade of April - between 11 and 17 April 1961. At a meeting of the State Commission, Gagarin's candidacy was approved, Titov was appointed as his backup.
On April 3, 1961, nine days before Yuri Gagarin's space flight, a special meeting of the Presidium of the CPSU Central Committee was held, which was personally chaired by the Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee Nikita Sergeevich Khrushchev. Dmitry Fedorovich Ustinov, Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR, made a presentation. Based on the results of the report, the Presidium of the Central Committee of the CPSU made a decision to launch a Soviet cosmonaut into space.
Five days later, on April 8, 1961, at a closed meeting of the State Commission for the launch of the Vostok spacecraft, chaired by Konstantin Nikolayevich Rudnev, head of the State Committee of the Council of Ministers of the USSR for defense technology, the first mission for a space flight in the history of mankind was approved.
The assignment signed by Sergei Korolev and the head of the department for preparation and support of space flights of the General Staff of the Air Force, Aviation Lieutenant General Nikolai Kamanin, emphasized:
Perform a one-turn flight around the Earth at an altitude of 180-230 kilometers, lasting 1 hour and 30 minutes with landing in a given area. The purpose of the flight is to check the possibility of a person staying in space on a specially equipped spacecraft, to check the equipment of the spacecraft in flight, to check the connection of the spacecraft to the Earth, to make sure that the means of landing the spacecraft and the astronaut are reliable.
At a meeting of the commission, the final decision was made to send senior lieutenant Yuri Alekseevich Gagarin into space.
The flight of Yuri Gagarin opened the era of space exploration through human participation in space flights. But the first flight into space also had political significance - by sending the first cosmonaut, the Soviet Union demonstrated to the whole world that, firstly, it could compete with the United States on equal terms and in many ways surpass them, and secondly, that the USSR is the flagship world scientific and technological progress and uses its intellectual and technical potential in the interests of humanity.
The Vostok-1 spacecraft with cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin on board took off from the Baikonur cosmodrome on April 12, 1961 at 09:07 Moscow time. The direct control of the launch team was carried out by the engineer-lieutenant colonel of the missile forces Anatoly Semenovich Kirillov. It was he who gave commands for the stages of launching the rocket and watched it through the periscope from the command bunker.
At the very beginning of the rise of the rocket, Yuri Gagarin exclaimed: "Let's go!" These words of the first Soviet cosmonaut became a kind of motto for a new era in the history of mankind - the era of space exploration. The origin of this phrase, of course, subsequently interested historians. It turned out that to say "Let's go!" preferred test pilot Mark Lazarevich Gallay, who was an instructor in the first cosmonaut corps. He believed that such an informal style has a more favorable effect on the psychological comfort of astronauts. Gallay himself later recalled that such a phrase was very common among the test pilots, from where it migrated to the cosmonaut corps.
When Korolev made the decision to launch a man into space as soon as possible out of fears that the Americans might outstrip us, he was absolutely right - the Americans were literally on their heels. On April 12, Yuri Gagarin flew into space, and on May 5, less than a month later, the Americans launched astronaut Alan Shepard into space. On July 21, 1961, another American flew into space - Virgil Grissom. The Soviet Union responded to his flight by launching the second Soviet cosmonaut into space - on August 6, 1961, German Titov went into space on the Vostok-2 spacecraft.
In 1962, the Soviet Union sent two more cosmonauts into space - Andriyan Nikolaev flew on August 11, and Pavel Popovich flew on August 12. On June 14, 1963, Valery Bykovsky went into space, and on June 16, 1963, for the first time in world history, a woman cosmonaut, Valentina Vladimirovna Tereshkova, flew into space. It was another large-scale experiment - after the successful launches of Gagarin, Titov, Nikolaev, Popovich and Bykovsky, Sergei Korolev decided to send a woman into space to once again emphasize gender equality in the Soviet Union and again set a world record. The choice fell on Valentina Tereshkova.
Unlike the first five cosmonauts, who were career officers of the naval aviation and air force, Valentina Tereshkova had nothing to do with the armed forces. She was the most ordinary worker in a textile factory, shortly before enrolling in the cosmonaut corps, she graduated from the correspondence technical school of light industry.
However, since 1959, Tereshkova was involved in parachuting at the Yaroslavl flying club and performed 90 parachute jumps. When they began to select the candidacy of a woman astronaut, the choice fell on 26-year-old Valentina Tereshkova. Together with other female candidates, she was enrolled in the cosmonaut corps and received the rank of private in the armed forces. On December 15, 1962, she was awarded the rank of junior lieutenant, on June 16, 1963 - lieutenant and on the same day - captain, and on January 9, 1965, 27-year-old Tereshkova had already put on major shoulder straps.
In 1964, the Soviet Union set records again. First, on October 12, 1964, a multi-seat spacecraft entered space for the first time. Vladimir Mikhailovich Komarov, Konstantin Petrovich Feoktistov and Boris Borisovich Egorov flew on it. Secondly, for the first time, civilian specialists took part in the flight on a multi-seat ship. Of the three cosmonauts, only Vladimir Mikhailovich Komarov was a career soldier. The 37-year-old engineer-lieutenant colonel of aviation Komarov on the day of the flight received the next military rank of engineer-colonel. He was a graduate of the Bataysk Military Aviation School named after. K. A. Serov and the 1st Faculty of Aviation Armament of the Air Force Academy. NOT. Zhukovsky, served at the Research Institute of the Air Force as an assistant to the leading engineer and tester of the 3rd department of the 5th department was engaged in testing new models of aviation technology.
Doctor Boris Borisovich Yegorov was 26 years old, at the time of the flight he had the military rank of captain of the medical service, graduated from the medical faculty of the 1st Moscow Order of Lenin Medical Institute. I. M. Sechenov. Konstantin Petrovich Feoktistov, a 38-year-old design engineer, worked with Sergei Korolev, was a civilian, although his whole life was associated with developments in the field of rocketry.
On March 18, 1965, the 39-year-old Lieutenant Colonel of Aviation Pavel Ivanovich Belyaev (on the day of the flight was awarded the rank of colonel) - a native of the Air Force fighter aircraft, went into space, and 30-year-old Major Alexei Arkhipovich Leonov (on the day of the flight he was awarded the rank of lieutenant colonel), who also began service in fighter aircraft. Alexei Arkhipovich Leonov for the first time in the history of world cosmonautics went into outer space. Thus, the Soviet Union did not stop making records in the field of astronautics.
For many decades, the space industry has been comprehensively developed in our country. Many discoveries and records were made and delivered by Soviet and then Russian cosmonauts. The cosmonaut profession has become almost the most prestigious in the Soviet Union, hundreds of thousands of Soviet boys dreamed of space, for many it was Gagarin's example that determined the path of life, prompting them to enter flight and aviation engineering schools.
Today astronautics has acquired a new meaning. The times of confrontation between great powers have returned, only today the competition between them unfolds not only on land and at sea, but also in space. It is no coincidence that the United States is actively developing space forces, and American statesmen do not get tired of talking about the imaginary "space danger" from Russia and China. The study of outer space, the development of astronautics is the most important condition not only for maintaining parity between the opposing powers, but also a step towards the likely use in the future of those resources and capabilities that space possesses.
Voennoye Obozreniye congratulates everyone involved in astronautics, the space industry and weapons, as well as all readers, all citizens of our space power, on this significant holiday - Cosmonautics Day.
