Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known
Founder: Joseph Barone
Contributors: crookedindifference, bumerangue, propagandery, rocketmagic, rostenbach
Catching Elephant is a theme by Andy Taylor
Yuri Gagarin right after the flight
Today marks the day of Yuri Gagarin’s flight on Восток-1 (Vostok-1); 52 years ago.
It was launched 06:07, at the Baikonur Cosmodrome. After orbiting the Earth, it landed at 07:55. The spaceflight totaled 108 minutes.
I am a friend, comrades, a friend!
Yuri Gagarin’s first words upon returning to earth, to a woman and a girl near where his capsule landed. (12 April 1961) The woman asked: “Can it be that you have come from outer space?” to which Gagarin replied: “As a matter of fact, I have!” (via asonlynasacan)
(Source: billionquotes.com)
British sculptor Richard Beach works on his clay bust of Yuri Gagarin, 5/26/61.
Vladimir Shatalov, director of the Cosmonaut Training Center (second left) in the Mir simulator with the Soyuz TM-7 crew: Aleksandr Volkov, Jean-Loup Chrétien (France) and Sergei Krikalev. (1988)
(Source)
A group portrait of cosmonauts involved with the Interkosmos program from the first mission, Soyuz 28 (1978) to Soyuz T-11 (1984).
Top: Sigmund Jähn (East Germany), Vladimir Dzhanibekov, Georgi Ivanov (Bulgaria), Yuri Malyshev, Rakesh Sharma (India), Bertalan Farkas (Hungary), Leonid Popov, Boris Volynov and Valery Bykovsky. Bottom: Pham Tuân (Vietnam), Viktor Gorbatko, Vladimír Remek (Czechoslovakia), Alexei Gubarev, Dumitru Prunariu (Romania), Pyotr Klimuk, Alexei Leonov, Mirosław Hermaszewski (Poland), Arnaldo Tamayo Méndez (Cuba), Anatoly Berezovoy.
(Source)
On the occasion of the flight of Yuri Gagarin, it’s impossible not to post anything about Sergei Korolev, as he made the Soviet space program successful. Mainly thanks to him Yuri Gagarin entered outer space.
This Ukrainian man was the lead Soviet rocket engineer and spacecraft designer in the Space Race.
Although Korolev was trained as an aircraft designer, his greatest strengths proved to be in design integration, organization and strategic planning. Arrested for alleged mismanagement of funds (he spent the money on unsuccessful experiments with rocket devices), he was imprisoned in 1938 for almost six years, including some months in a Kolyma labour camp. Following his release, he became a recognized rocket designer and a key figure in the development of the Soviet ICBM program. He was then appointed to lead the Soviet space program, made Member of Soviet Academy of Sciences, overseeing the early successes of the Sputnik and Vostok projects. By the time he died unexpectedly in 1966, his plans to compete with the United States to be the first nation to land a man on the Moon had begun to be implemented.
Before his death he was often referred to only as “Chief Designer”, because his name and his pivotal role in the Soviet space program had been held to be a state secret by the Politburo. Only many years later was he publicly acknowledged as the lead man behind Soviet success in space.
International Day of Human Space Flight
The General Assembly, in its resolution A/RES/65/271 of 7 April 2011, declared 12 April as the International Day of Human Space Flight “to celebrate each year at the international level the beginning of the space era for mankind, reaffirming the important contribution of space science and technology in achieving sustainable development goals and increasing the well-being of States and peoples, as well as ensuring the realization of their aspiration to maintain outer space for peaceful purposes.”
12 April 1961 was the date of the first human space flight, carried out by Yuri Gagarin, a Soviet citizen. This historic event opened the way for space exploration for the benefit of all humanity. The General Assembly expressed its deep conviction of the common interest of mankind in promoting and expanding the exploration and use of outer space, as the province of all mankind, for peaceful purposes and in continuing efforts to extend to all States the benefits derived there from.
This year’s observance has been organized by the United Nations Academic Impact, an initiative of the Secretary-General. As a global alliance of more than 800 institutions of higher education and research, it is committed to supporting the United Nations realize its mission and mandates.
On image above, a postal stamp, reading “Soviet Man in Space” and depicting Yuri Gagarin.
Source: Roscosmos Facebook page.
Cosmonaut Couture: Russian Photo Shoot Makes Space Sexy
Photos like this could pass for a Cold War-era Russian propaganda program, or perhaps shots straight from the set of the movie Moonraker — if not for a stray pair of late-20th century sneakers.
Renowned fashion photographer Arthur Elgort, now 72, actually created these images for the December 1999 issue of Russian Vogue.
In the images, supermodel Natalia Semanova mingles with real-life cosmonauts at Star City, a town northeast of Moscow and home of the Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center, where for more than 50 years the Russian Federal Space Agency has trained willing citizens to fly in space. (Recently they’ve also been trained to survive 520 days inside a tin can.)
The photos experienced a recent resurgence in social media circles, so Wired tracked down Elgort to learn more about the timeless photos.
I posted some of these photos 2 weeks ago but check out the article, the photographer talks about working with the cosmonauts.
cwnl:
First Female Cosmonaut in Space: Valentina Tereshkova
Born March 6, 1937, Valentina is a retired Soviet cosmonaut, and was the first woman in space. She was selected out of more than four hundred applicants, and then out of five finalists, to pilot Vostok 6 on the 16 June, 1963, becoming both the first woman and the first civilian to fly in space, as she was only honorarily inducted into the USSR’s Air Force as a condition on joining the Cosmonaut Corps. During her three-day mission, she performed various tests on herself to collect data on the female body’s reaction to spaceflight.
Before being recruited as a cosmonaut, Tereshkova was a textile-factory assembly worker and an amateur parachutist. After the dissolution of the first group of female cosmonauts in 1969, she became a prominent member of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, holding various political offices. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, she retired from politics, but remains revered as a hero in post-Soviet Russia.
Salyut 1: the very first space station, in operation in 1971
On July 25, 1984, Svetlana Savitskaya became the first woman to walk in space. Along with fellow cosmonaut, Vladimir Dzhanibekov, conducted experiments on the Salyut 7 space station. The walk lasted 3.58 hours and was part of the Soyuz T-12 mission, Savitskaya’s last. Igor Petrovich Volk rounded out this 3 person crew.
After returning to Earth on July 29, 1984, Savitskaya was slated to command an all female Soyuz crew to the space station in commeration of National Women’s Day. The mission was scrubbed due to the lack of Soyuz T availability and various troubles with the space station itself.
On 15 November 1988, the Soviet Union stunned western observers by launching Buran, its clone of the NASA space shuttle, into low Earth orbit. After circling the globe twice, the uncrewed spacecraft – its name means “blizzard” – flew to an impressive precision runway landing in Baikonur, Kazahkstan. Much was expected of the spacecraft but it never flew again. Despite pressure from the cosmonaut corps itself the craft was not developed into a human-carrying craft and was scrapped.
But what if it had not been? As the US shuttle faces its last mission, we asked veteran cosmonaut Oleg Kotov, who has spent 359 days on the International Space Station in two missions, what happened to Buran – and how it may have improved on the US design.
New Scientist: After the cold war, why didn’t Russia maintain its shuttle programme?
Oleg Kotov: We had no civilian tasks for Buran and the military ones were no longer needed. It was originally designed as a military system for weapon delivery, maybe even nuclear weapons. The American shuttle also has military uses.
The idea was to drop weapons from orbit?
Yes, absolutely. A shuttle is particularly useful for this because it can change its orbit and trajectory – so an attack from it is almost impossible to protect against. But the need for such military applications ended.
