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Yuri Gagarin: Sixty years since the first man went into space [video]
- fiftyacorn 6y agoAmazing it was only 60 years ago. My favourite Gagarin story was when he visited Manchester on a rainy day and they wanted to replace the open top car for a car with a roof. Gagarin said no that if the people waited in the rain then the least he could do was sit in an open top car
- zabzonk 6y ago> he visited Manchester on a rainy day Are there any other kinds of days there?
- dt123 6y agoCan confirm there is one day of sun a year source: spent three years at uni there
- HatchedLake721 6y agoLive from Manchester, it's sunshine here today and same for the rest of the week! :)
- LanceH 6y agoIt's tricky because the sunshine is grey.
- midasuni 6y agoOnly rains in Manchester when Londoners come to visit. Got to keep up appearances.
- sizzzzlerz 6y agoOld joke: Q: Are there any other kinds of days there? A: Don't know. I haven't been there long enough Q: How long is that A: All my life.
- fumblebee 6y agoI know a tautology when I see one.
- astatine 6y agoIt is an amazing story. Stories like this break barriers of nations, languages and status and make humans out of these otherwise exalted individuals.
- lightgreen 6y agoThere was no barrier between USSR and Britain nations, the barrier was between USSR government and democratic world.
- yannis 6y agoMost amazing he also came to Cyprus and I was a kid at the time. We all went to see him in his car parade. Posters with his picture were left pasted on walls for many years. Video here https://www.britishpathe.com/video/gagarin-in-cyprus https://www.britishpathe.com/video/gagarin-in-cyprus
- rjsw 6y agoMy grandparents met him when he toured the Metrovick [1] site, grandfather was a senior engineer there. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropolitan-Vickers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropolitan-Vickers
- swashboon 6y agofirst man survived going into space
- falcor84 6y agoI don't know what you're referring up. Did we ever end up sending a dead human body into space?
- RealityVoid 6y agoThere is a conspiracy theory going around that the Russians sent more than one person in space but they kept it under raps in order to avoid the embarrassment that goes with killing one of your pioneers.
- inglor_cz 6y agoHe is hinting at the conspiracy theory that Soviets had a previous unsuccessful attempt when the cosmonaut died. While the USSR was fairly secretive and during its existence, a successful hush-up of a major screw-up was at least possible, we would have learnt about it since 1991.
- fiftyacorn 6y agoRadio communication monitoring would have gave it away
- HatchedLake721 6y agoWhy 1991? Even though USSR collapsed, whatever was sealed, is still sealed to this day.
- trdtaylor1 6y ago'For all mankind' shows if the space race continued; brings to heart what these people felt after going up and to the moon only to be stuck in earth orbit maximum for the next 40 years.
- nabla9 6y agoIt's really good show (created and written by Ronald D. Moore). Writers try to take the technical and scientific advise seriously as much as they can. In the second season they show new spacecraft designs that are based on actual proposals. Like the Sea Dragon super heavy-lift launch vehicle. They also introduce androgynous mating system that is very similar to International Docking System Standard (IDSS) https://www.internationaldockingstandard.com/ https://www.internationaldockingstandard.com/
- arethuza 6y agoNitpick: I think the Sea Dragon launch is actually first shown right at the very end of season 1. What I particularly like about the show is how technology advances more quickly in their timeline - e.g. electric car, cell phones in the 1980s.
- nabla9 6y agoAnd those are completely believable or did already exist. 1G (analog cellular networks) already existed. NASA administrator might have had Motorola DynaTAC 8000X in 1983 even in our timeline. EV car that runs 60 miles with a single charge is a real change to our timeline, but believable if the investment into EV would have been huge (needed in the moon and space in large quantities). Overall, the worldbuilding that went into that show is impressive. Many events in the show actually happened, but are resolved differently or have different consequences.
- Taniwha 6y agoEV cars with an 80 mile range were available in 1911 in this very timeline .... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Detroit_Electric https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Detroit_Electric
- axelfontaine 6y agoIn case anyone needs something to add to their long list of things to do when Covid will be over, I highly recommend visiting the museum of Cosmonautics in Moscow (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memorial_Museum_of_Cosmonautics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memorial_Museum_of_Cosmonautic...) I had the chance to visit it in 2019 and it's an absolutely fascinating place. With Soyuz capsules that returned from space, Mir module replicas you can go into, asteroids you can touch, a Buran replica and an incredibly detailed walkthrough of the Soviet pioneering work at the dawn of the space race, there is simply no other place like it. Well worth it!
- izacus 6y agoOhh... does it make sense to see it even if you don't speak Russian?
- axelfontaine 6y agoAbsolutely! I don't speak a word of Russian and used their excellent audio guide in English.
- IgorPartola 6y agoSimply out of curiosity, have you been to the Kennedy Space Center and how does it compare? As someone who was born in the USSR but hadn’t seen much of it before I left, I am very curious about the differences in attitudes and presentation with things like this.
- Robotbeat 6y agoGotta say the Kennedy Space Center visitor’s center sounds very similar (they have the best Space Shuttle display is think), plus has a full Saturn V. Plus the Washington DC’s Smithsonian Air and Space Center (free... has a spare Skylab space station you can walk into, plus an Apollo-Soyuz display, plus a Moon rock you can literally touch) and the museum at the airport which has an orbiter. It’d be fun to see these and the Moscow museum back to back to compare. We are fortunate to live in a world with parallel space programs—that cooperate!
- bvrmn 6y agoI'm russian and April 12 is a sad day. We have a phrase: "Юра, мы все проебали" (Yura, we fucked up everything). The most terrifying though is if Gagarin stays alive till now and helps government to propose awful laws like Tereshkova (first woman in space).
- Glavnokoman 6y agoThis is not a sad day, despite some hopefully temporary setback in the space exploration. А ты дурак.
- bvrmn 6y agoHow many launches Rogozin did in 2020 comparing to US and China? What about a trend for last 5 years? How about planned launches in 2021? There is a real decline and only a blind person cannot see it. You can drink Vodka every year and be proud of Gagarin but it will not help to change anything about russian space.
- isolli 6y agoIt's impressive what the Soviet Union achieved with "analog" technology. I did not know they had landed a rover on the moon. Imagine all the automation this requires, but without any advanced electronics. Was it all relays and switches? They were also the first to photograph the other side of the moon. Imagine what it took to develop the photos in space and beam them back to earth. I can't possibly imagine doing this without a digital sensor. PS. Not a Soviet Union fan otherwise...
- p_l 6y agoOne of the engineers on the failed (and later covered up) soviet moon program supposedly said that if not for soviet focus on automation, they would have been first on the moon - and that in comparison, Americans "eyeballed it". Not entirely true on american side, but there was a definite trend on US side to depend more on human in the loop.
- isolli 6y agoRequired viewing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B1J2RMorJXM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B1J2RMorJXM
- nine_k 6y agoSoviet moon mission had real trouble with the booster, which had many engines; this is not something you can realistically control by hand. In short, the boosters kept blowing up: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/N1_(rocket) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/N1_(rocket) (That setup was later avenged for all its tragic mishaps by SpaceX's Falcons.)
- p_l 6y agoThat's one of the options they had for moon flight, and arguably the critical part that closed their chance to get there first. But a lot of other options, doable earlier, would have been possible if there was less perfectionism applied to automated flight - that's the argument I've heard. N.B. Currently used Soyuz spacecraft (not the carrier rocket) is derived from the moon program capsule.
- hkt 6y agoI read in _Berlin 1961_ that Gagarin was sent into space on Khrushchev's orders before the engineers wanted him to do, largely so he could feel an advantage over JFK when inviting him to talk about the problems of East Germany (namely mass migration to West Germany.) The previous cosmonaut apparently cursed Khrushchev as he realised he was going to die in a flight a month before. He burned to death. I don't recall the name or other circumstances but recommend the book.
- p_l 6y agoKomarov died in 1967, 6 years later, during first test flight of the Soyuz capsule, and cosmonauts considered the test plan rushed. Yuri Gagarin publicly spoke against mismanagement by program director.
- chupasaurus 6y agoThe previous cosmonauts before Gagarin were 2 dogs who couldn't curse Khruschev and they'd returned alive and well.
- Koshkin 6y agoThe first canine cosmonaut was Laika (Sputnik-2, 1957, one month after Sputnik-1). It was a one-way trip though.
- hkt 6y agoWell, it turns out the quite entertaining history book I mentioned above has peddled a conspiracy theory. I'm a little surprised, and more than a little hurt, that a respected writer would slip something like this into a work of nonfiction. So, sorry and thank you HN, I feel less wrong than I was before.
- arethuza 6y agoGagarin's name is included on the plaque for the Fallen Astronaut sculpture secretly placed on the moon by the crew of Apollo 15: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallen_Astronaut https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallen_Astronaut
- papito 6y agoGagarin died during a test flight, this is not some sort of pre-Twitter trolling. Perhaps it was not your intention to suggest it, but it was my first thought. Maybe the social media broke me.
- nabla9 6y agoIt's not a list of people who died in space or during space flight. It's list of people who died while serving as astronauts or cosmonauts. Astronaut Edward G. Givens Jr. included in the Fallen Astronaut plaque died in a car accident before being assigned to a prime or backup spaceflight crew.
- zabzonk 6y ago> Gagarin died during a test flight Actually, not a test flight - a rather routine one, and most sources seem to think that the problem was adverse weather. From wikipedia: "On 27 March 1968, while on a routine training flight from Chkalovsky Air Base, Gagarin and flight instructor Vladimir Seryogin died when their MiG-15UTI crashed "
- arethuza 6y agoI just thought it was an awesome mark of respect to their colleagues of all nations.
- 2Gkashmiri 6y agoi have the honor of touching a return capsule that brought a human back from space. How many people in the 7 billion can say that?
- nine_k 6y agoAnyone who visited a museum near Moscow (if you want the very first one), or a bunch of expositions across the US (if you want those which traveled to the moon): https://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/lunar/apolloloc.html https://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/lunar/apolloloc.html
- baybal2 6y agoI did, in US. Russia sells spent capsules for souveniers these day.
- odiroot 6y agoThere's one in my hometown on public display. I could risk a guess tens of thousands of people touched it.
- 2Gkashmiri 6y agooh. that was years ago, probably in 2015 i guess
- marshmallow_12 6y agoI once saw something (probably a space capsule) in the Science Museum, London.
- KuiN 6y agoI'm pretty sure that'll be the Soyuz capsule that Tim Peake flew to & from ISS on (Soyuz TMA-19M), hence the UK interest. I saw it on temporary display in Edinburgh before it went down to London for permanent display at the Science Museum.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- MichaelMoser123 6y agothat's a movie recreation of Gagarin's space flight https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TLBy-8vdeww https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TLBy-8vdeww . Cheers! the movie mentions the scene of the lady and her grandma's meeting with Gagarin as mentioned in the linked article, so it must have gotten right something.
- StreamBright 6y ago60 years of very little progress. Unfortunately our generation decided to go on Facebook instead of going to space.
- boringg 6y agoNeed to solve the light speed problem. We still have figured out the physics to really take flight.
- StreamBright 6y agoIn our solar system there are plenty of destinations to go to, projects to do. Like mining the asteroid belt and moving all the heavy industry that produces CO2 or other pollutants to space. Make space flights as cheap and reliable as commercial flights on Earth. And so on. These you can solve without FTL.
- trhway 6y ago>Need to solve the light speed problem it will come in due course. Most probably you can't do Alcubierre drive (or any other promising FTL) on a planet surface or near large gravitational bodies, and the energy source for it is also most probably not environmentally friendly, so you anyway need to be in space to do it. So we need to build up starting from what we have - for now we can explore Solar system, like colonize Mars, build large space stations, etc. with fission engines, and with fusion (or with nuclear Orion like) we can get a probe to Alpha Centauri at up to 0.1c. Unfortunately, if one excludes Musk, there has been no meaningful progress in the recent decades, and that is puzzling and very disconcerting - the drive to kind of collapse/implode our civilization into an extremely stable state of highly connected absolutely socially cohesive planetary scale ant-city seems to be winning over the civilization expansion drive which has almost died ( and i think that is one of the Great Filters, and it is very possible that we will also not make past it). GP>to go on Facebook instead of going to space if it can't be fought, may be it can be harnessed - lets hope that influencers instagramming from the dark side of the Moon will provide a sizeable cashflow and popular support for the space development.
- marshmallow_12 6y ago
- jsomau 6y agoIf you're in to the space race, don't miss Public Service Broadcasting - Race for Space album. They have an epic track for Gagarin: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wY-kAnvOY80 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wY-kAnvOY80 The entire album is one of my favourites of all time.
- LatteLazy 6y agoPeople go on an on about the moon but sputnik and gagarin were the real achievement.
- avmich 6y agoA rather popular opinion in Russian space circles is that there were three towering events in space - Sputnik on October 4 '57, Gagarin on April 12 '61 and Armstrong on July 20 '69. And no fourth so far - e.g. first Columbia flight isn't of that level of importance.
- bryananderson 6y agoApollo 11 astronaut Michael Collins has made the case that Apollo 8, the first mission to venture outward from low Earth orbit, deserves a place in this pantheon and is arguably more epochal than Apollo 11. It is a question of which is more significant: venturing outward for the first time, or arriving somewhere for the first time. Collins has said that, as time passes, that first tentative outward journey feels more significant to him on the grand timeline of human history than the first step on the Moon.
- avmich 6y agoApollo 8 technically is significantly simpler than Apollo 11. Many Apollo 8 results could perhaps be achieved by USSR with two launches of Proton. They can argue if that high orbit - 400,000 km apogee - and entering Moon orbit is that much of a qualitative step. In a sense, getting to orbit is already venturing outward, and Apollo 8 is venturing somewhat furter - not clear to me how much is it of a difference.
- bryananderson 6y agoCertainly Apollo 11 is far more technically audacious than Apollo 8, and the Soviets really did get quite close to a slightly simpler version of Apollo 8 (and could have pulled it off given enough time and effort--whereas landing on the moon was beyond their reach without much more funding to integrate and test N-1 properly). Collins is speaking more of the historical and philosophical significance of stepping away from the shores of our lonesome island.
- FpUser 6y ago>"For the USSR, Yuri Gagarin’s single orbit of the Earth was a huge achievement and propaganda coup." And of course the opposite side did not use their without question great achievements for propaganda. Just pure love of mankind. Can they just for once enjoy the ride and celebrate without adding bit of venom?
- sashavingardt2 6y agoHe was the first man to come back from space alive (disclaimer: two members of my family worked for the space program) and what's really peculiar about his case is that he was chosen not only based on his undoubtedly stellar qualifications as a pilot but also because he was a handsome chap.
- blululu 6y agoEverything I’ve read about Gagarin suggests that he was a phenomenal person. People liked him as a person. He was both smart and kind. Add in his personal bio and it’s not hard to see why the Soviet leaders picked him.
- cuspycode 6y agoThere was also the purely physical qualification that he was only 157 cm tall. Size matters when sending payloads to space.
- dennis_jeeves 6y agoDamn, it bothers me that your comment was down voted. Are there no consequences for those who unjustly down vote? In fact considering what I know of dictatorship regimes you could be right. They are generally big on showmanship and public image, with scant regard for human life.
- sashavingardt2 6y agoAbsolutely. It was all about PR. Still is but no substance to back it up in the least.
- anonymousiam 6y agoNo parties for Yuri's Night this year :( This year it's virtual only. https://yurisnight.net/ https://yurisnight.net/
- cameldrv 6y agoI didn't know until recently the landing method they used for this flight. Gagarin was incredibly brave. First, the Vostok reentered and opened a parachute to slow down. Then it blew the hatch and fired him out of the capsule in his ejection seat, which fired its own parachute. Then somewhat lower, Gagarin had to jump out of the ejection seat with his own parachute and land. That is a lot of things that all have to work to land safely.
- aasasd 6y agoSo it's parachutes all the way down.
- avmich 6y agoAnd this is one of simpler spacecrafts. I'd really prefer Dream Chaser to get completed, I think failure modes on winged crafts are better.
- vassilevsky 6y agoAlways has been.
- userulluipeste 6y agoIt's possible that the multiple parachute system to be just built-in redundancies out of functional safety reasons, so that any successfully deployed parachute to actually render the next parachute deployment unnecessary.
- marshmallow_12 6y agoI always felt bad for Yuri. The Americans made a huge deal about John Glenn, yet his record is basically worthless. Yuri had done it all before, but it seems some people refused to acknowledge it. This was one of the first things that opened my eyes that propaganda still exists.
- spzb 6y agoI would have thought most people here in the UK remember Gagarin but few would remember Glenn without prompting. Is that not the case elsewhere in the world?
- marton78 6y agoGagarin is my childhood hero, never heard about Glenn.
- mixmastamyk 6y agoIf you've seen The Right Stuff or Hidden Figures, you'd be hard pressed to forget.
- grecy 6y agoIt's very common for movies made by Americans, with American money and intended to be viewed by Americans to glorify America and Americans.
- mixmastamyk 6y agoYep, they're both about Americans. Although the Soviets do play their parts as competitors. He also rode a space shuttle in retirement.
- sangnoir 6y ago> The Americans made a huge deal about John Glenn, yet his record is basically worthless. The whole reason the US was in the race to the moon was because the had lost the race to space (Sputnik, and then Yuri). The US badly needed a win.
- TheButlerian 6y agoCommie bastard, got what he deserves.
- wfh 6y agoBBC Radio 4 also presented a good hour-long segment on Gagarin last weekend https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000v24g https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000v24g
- kweks 6y agoJust before COVID I trekked into Baïkonour - just next to the building with the Burans is Yuri Gagarin's launch pad - which is quite amazing to see. Photos for the interested: https://ninjito.com/2020-02-05-Baikonour https://ninjito.com/2020-02-05-Baikonour (Gagarin's launch pad in the second to last photo)
- gnull 6y agoWhat a mess. Is the hangar on the first photos abandoned? Can anyone freely get inside? (Beautiful photos!)
- kweks 6y agoThere are a multitude of abandoned structures (including the tall building next to this one, with a life size mockup of Russia's heavy lift rocket). It's not legal, but if you're willing make the 35km hike in, it's not highly protected either (at least for the abandoned structures - I wouldn't go near the active launch structures). With that said, you can also take legal (albeit expensive) tours, which look quite fascinating as well - staying in the Sputnik hotel, seeing the Gagarin launch pad, etc
- datameta 6y agoNot the most technical of narrations of the Buran but it details the trek which they make mid-winter at night to avoid patrols https://youtu.be/5HebeCZwo08 https://youtu.be/5HebeCZwo08
- kweks 6y agoSimilar for my trip, the Kazak winter has certain advantages, but also increases logistic difficulties (-30°C.. everything freezes..), and you have to be completely autonomous. We were severely limited by water, and the continuous juggle to rotate water and gas canisters inside your jackets to keep everything liquid as possible. Likewise winter also means you have to work extra hard to cover tracks etc..
- 6y ago
- paviva 6y agoA fitting tribute: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xGFz5JkLzw8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xGFz5JkLzw8
- neverminder 6y agoI heard a story about Gagarin, but I cannot find any sources to confirm it now. One day he was driving home tired and caused a car accident. When the police arrived at the scene and saw him, they said he is free to go and that they will deal with the guilty party, some poor old man. Shortly Gagarin turned back and admitted the guilt, he couldn't have it on his conscience. He was a man of integrity. Rumors surrounding his mysterious death were that the government thought the heroes should die young, before they become irrelevant or screw up and damage their image. The hero cult was very strong in Soviet Union.
- pdkl95 6y agohttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bqL7Yllgeew https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bqL7Yllgeew "Fire in the sky" Gagarin was the first, back in 1961 When like Icarus, undaunted, he climbed to reach the Sun And he knew he might not make it, for it's never hard to die But he lifted off the pad, and rode a fire in the sky!
- iso1210 6y agoAlso 40 years to the day since the first US Space Shuttle launch (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STS-1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STS-1)
- lr1970 6y agoFor those interested in the detailed and honest exposition of the Soviet Space Program there is a great book written by Korolev deputy Boris Chertok (head of automation for Space Program). The book was translated into English by NASA and is available for free as a PDF file on the NASA's web site [0] [0] https://www.nasa.gov/connect/ebooks/rockets_people_vol1_detail.html https://www.nasa.gov/connect/ebooks/rockets_people_vol1_deta...
- selebrazin 6y agoDoes anyone have a good source describing if and how American space program changed after Gagarin? What I'm interested in is to know how the US reacted and if they assimilated bits and pieces of Soviet technology/processes for their own purposes, seeing as they were now field-tested and successful.