The first manned flight into space. The first flight into space - interesting details Who said “Let's go”

Presidents and kings, politicians and businessmen, schoolchildren and scientists, artists and musicians considered it a great honor to meet him.

Thousands of people around the world greeted him on the streets of their cities. His calm eyes, kind smile and truly open soul, which conquered all the people with whom he had to communicate, made him a beloved face of our Motherland for many years. The name of this simple Soviet man, indistinguishable from thousands of other similar working people, became next to the name of Columbus and Magellan. He was identified with Icarus, the hero of poetic myth. But he remained himself, modest and smart. He remained Yuri Alekseevich Gagarin. It is this name that will forever be included in all textbooks of history, aviation, astronautics and many other sciences as the name of the person who first visited space. Anyone can easily find details of Gagarin’s life on the Internet, and on this page we will try to tell you about how the first flight into space went.

Flight

The spaceship in which Yuri Gagarin flew to the stars was called “Vostok”. At nine o'clock in the morning, the chief designer of the spacecraft and launch vehicle, Korolev, gave the command to launch. The rocket took off from the launch pad and flew off. Overloads immediately began to increase. G-forces are changes in body weight due to accelerated movement. Most often, people feel very slight overloads when the elevator in a residential building starts moving or stops. Cosmonauts feel the same thing, only instead of an elevator there is a rocket, and the overloads themselves are tens of times stronger. Gagarin was literally pressed into a chair. As soon as Vostok broke through the dense layers of the atmosphere, the first cosmonaut saw the Earth. The relief was clearly visible: valleys and hills, forests and fields. The most beautiful sight was the horizon - a stripe painted with all the colors of the rainbow, separating the Earth in the light of the sun's rays from the black sky.

Vostok-1 rocket launch

The launch vehicle worked the program normally, but at the very end difficulties arose: the engines worked 15 seconds longer than the calculated time. This resulted in the spacecraft's orbit being hundreds of kilometers higher than planned, which could create serious problems in the future. In order to begin its descent, the spacecraft only needs to slow down its speed in orbit: for this, there are special braking engines that turn on when the astronauts decide that it is time to fly back to Earth. Sometimes it happens that the braking engines do not work, and then the ship's pilot can give a command to turn on the backup braking system. In order to lighten the weight, a backup braking system was not installed on the Vostok. There were two reasons for this. Firstly, if the engines did not fire, the spacecraft would have slowed down from friction with the Earth's atmosphere and would have left orbit in 7-8 days. Therefore, the ship had food and air supplies for ten days, and all cosmonauts were trained to spend several days in the closed volume of the spacecraft. Secondly, no launch vehicle can put a very heavy spacecraft into orbit, so they tried to lighten all the equipment, instruments of the ship, and even Gagarin’s clothes by at least a gram. In order to descend to Earth from an off-design orbit, in the event of a failure of the braking engines, Vostok would have needed about a month, which threatened Gagarin with inevitable death from hunger and thirst or lack of oxygen. The command center knew about the overlay, but decided not to inform the cosmonaut about it ahead of time, so as not to irritate Gagarin again.

The mental state of astronauts is always monitored very carefully, because no one knows what a nervous breakdown in orbit could result in. In those days, doctors were much more worried than they are now, because no one yet knew how being in space would affect the human psyche. There were opinions that the astronaut could go crazy from what he saw during the flight. Because of these fears, the designers, at the insistence of doctors, blocked the manual control of the ship, and Gagarin was given an envelope with a simple logical problem, the answer to which was the code to enable manual control of the Vostok. True, the cosmonaut’s friends were very afraid for him and long before the launch they told him the answer. However, both psychologists and Yuri’s friends worried in vain. The first thing Gagarin said when he saw the Earth from space was: “What a beauty!..”

There was no camera on board the spacecraft, and Gagarin wrote down his observations and impressions in a logbook with a pencil (ink fountain pens do not write in zero gravity).

After one of the entries, he let go of the pencil, and it floated freely around the cabin along with the tablet. But suddenly the knot of the lace on which the pencil was attached came undone, and he dived somewhere under the seat. From that moment on, Gagarin did not see him again. He had to transmit his further observations by radio and record them on a tape recorder. After the flight, on Earth, he wrote the world-famous lines: “Having flown around the Earth in a satellite ship, I saw how beautiful our planet is. People, let us preserve and increase this beauty, and not destroy it!”

Having flown once around the Earth, Vostok automatically and in time turned on the braking system, but upon completion of the work, the braking engine did not separate from the descent vehicle. As a result, for 10 minutes before entering the atmosphere, the ship tumbled randomly at a speed of 1 revolution per second. Now Gagarin decided not to frighten the flight directors and in conditional terms reported an emergency situation on board the ship: “I’m spinning a little.” Only when the ship entered denser layers of the atmosphere did the descent module finally separate from the engine compartment. The overloads during descent were 8-10 times greater than gravity. After such overloads, an untrained person’s vision completely fails, but Gagarin was trained to endure even greater overloads. He was much more impressed by the burning of the skin of the descent vehicle during landing. When the spacecraft capsule enters the dense layers of the atmosphere, its skin becomes very hot from friction with the air, the temperature outside reaches 3-5 thousand degrees. Therefore, when designing spacecraft, engineers always calculate the required wall thickness so that they do not have time to melt during descent, and come up with special thermal insulation and cooling systems.

Sitting inside the capsule, Gagarin saw streams of liquid metal flowing through the windows, also made of refractory glass, blown away by the incoming air flow, and the cabin itself began to crackle and crunch. From inside, it seemed as if the capsule was rushing through a rain of fire. The technology, in which Yuri was confident, did not let him down, and, having safely descended to a height of 7 km, Gagarin, as planned, ejected from the descent module. The capsule and the astronaut began to descend separately by parachute. The last problem in this flight was the landing site: Gagarin could parachute into the icy water of the Volga. Yuri's rich experience as a pilot and parachutist helped him: while controlling the parachute, he was able to fly across the river while descending and landed 1.5 - 2 kilometers from the shore. 113 minutes after the spacecraft took off, Gagarin set foot on Earth again.

The first people who met the astronaut after the flight were the wife of a local forester and her six-year-old granddaughter. Soon the military and local collective farmers arrived at the scene. Gagarin was taken to the unit's location. From there, Gagarin reported by telephone to the commander of the air defense division: “ Please convey to the Air Force Commander-in-Chief: I completed the task, landed in the given area, I feel good, there are no bruises or breakdowns. Gagarin".

Thus, on April 12, 1961, the first successful human flight into space ended. This day is called International Cosmonautics Day and is celebrated both in Russia and around the world.

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Even before the start of the space race, it became clear that it would be extremely costly for any participants. The launch of a spacecraft is preceded by the formation of a concept, the development of space technology samples, the creation of a scientific and industrial base, infrastructure, and personnel training. Only the most powerful industrialized states can do this.

Flight price

When determining the cost of a flight, the ratio of the payload mass (PL) to the mass of the spacecraft as a whole is first determined. Today it does not exceed 19%. The introduction of new technologies will increase this figure to 25% in the near future.


Unfortunately, there are no uniform criteria for determining the cost of delivering cargo into space. The figures appearing in open sources do not correlate well with each other due to the difference in currencies and launch times. The price may be affected by the level of inflation and changes in global conditions.

In some cases, when estimating the cost of a launch, the cost of an unfueled launch vehicle is taken into account, but the work of support services and the amount of insurance are not taken into account, so we can only talk about approximate figures.

And yet, according to experts, the main costs fall on the preparation and launch of the launch vehicle. According to their calculations, putting a kilogram of payload into orbit costs from 10 to 25 thousand dollars.

To space on a tourist package

The idea of ​​space tourism was first voiced half a century ago in the United States by Barron Hilton and Eric Craft. However, it took more than 30 years to implement it. On April 28, 2001, the first space tourist, Dennis Tito, went to the ISS. The space tour cost him $20 million.


The “tourist season” on the ISS ended in October 2009 with the flight of Canadian Guy Laliberté, who had to shell out $35 million. In total, the station was visited by 7 space tourists.

How much does it cost to fly into space as a tourist today? It is clear that for a long time the cost of space tourism will be available exclusively to those with tight wallets.

It is also clear that the demand for future commercial flights is very high and their prices will inevitably decrease, which is largely facilitated by the growth in the number of participants in the space tourism services market.

Among them are the organizers of flights to the ISS, pioneers of space tourism - RSC Energia and the Space Adventures company. Their serious competition is from Virgin Galactic, XCOR Aerospace, Blue Origin, Space X (USA). The list of services they offer is also expanding.


Thus, the companies World View and ZeroZinfinity are going to offer a flight to the stratosphere (30-45 km) in hot air balloons for 75 and 116 thousand dollars, respectively. The American company Zerog is ready to provide its customers with a zero-gravity plane flight (for 20-30 seconds) for $5,000. A ticket for Virgin Galactic's promising spacecraft will cost from 150 to 200 thousand dollars.

The most advanced potential space tourists are increasingly asking the question: How much does a trip to the Moon cost? According to Roscosmos representative Alexey Krasnov, a ticket to the Moon can be purchased on the basis that the entire flight will cost approximately $100 million.

Launches are becoming cheaper

Recently, the number of participants in the space market has increased manifold, and, consequently, competition between them is becoming increasingly fierce, and therefore there has been a tendency towards cheaper launches.


Thus, the American companies Blue Origin and Space X, led by Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk, are actively working on the creation of inexpensive reusable launch vehicles. The technology of air launch from a transport aircraft is being developed. There are prospects for resuming the suspended international project “Sea Launch”.

In addition, work is underway to create more advanced and economical engines. An example of this is the (CVRD) for the promising single-stage launch vehicle Demonstrator 3, which is being developed by ARCA Space Corporation.


The Cold War is a historical period from the end of World War II until the collapse of the Soviet Union, when two major superpowers were in a military-political confrontation. Although the Cold War was based on the confrontation between two specific states, it is considered global, since almost all the powers of the world were drawn into the race.

The Second World War, despite its destructive nature, nevertheless gave impetus to the creation of improved weapons systems, the study of additional methods of defense and led to new world discoveries.

After the end of the Second World War and the victory over Hitler, the two largest and most powerful superpowers emerged - these USSR And USA. Rivalry between countries manifested itself in all spheres of life and affected economics, politics, science and ideology. What appeared in one state was instantly transferred to the second with new improvements and ideas. Thus, both powers had the strongest command and control bodies: the American NATO and the Soviet Department of Internal Affairs, both states were engaged in the successful development of nuclear weapons, actively developed the military economy, developed new means of defense and attack, and also acted as third parties in all emerging military battles and conflicts. These were times of bitter rivalry, hidden conflicts, spies and envoys, secret codes and great scientific achievements.

The causes of the Cold War were:

  • US focus on world domination;

The goal of the United States was quite clear - the weakened European powers could not take the palm, since establishing the usual way of life required a colossal investment of time and finances. Other countries in the world were still too undeveloped to compete with a strong, modern and innovative America. The United States decided to use this as a chance to seize world territories and unite all nations under American ideology.

  • the difference between the ideologies promoted by the USA and the USSR.

Primarily, the differences were based on ideology and the promoted way of life. The views of the communist Soviet Union were in direct opposition to the values ​​and morals of capitalist America. The victory over Nazi Germany brought unprecedented glory and greatness to the Soviet Union. Fearing the spread of communism, the United States openly declared its rights and launched a conflict with the Soviet Union.

Why didn't the powers switch to open military action?

The main limiting factor was the presence of nuclear missile weapons in huge quantities by both powers. Open hostilities between two world leaders would inevitably lead to the complete destruction of the Earth.

Winner of the race

The results of the Cold War turned out to be ambiguous and in some ways even contradictory.

Specifically regarding the two adversaries, the Cold War ended with the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. The post-war economic system of the USSR could not withstand the arms race. A too rapid leap in development and dramatic modernization of all existing state-owned enterprises in the country led to the collapse of the state into separate autonomous powers. The communist ideology and policies of Stalin turned out to be unacceptable for many participants in the USSR, during which the socialist camp collapsed.

Russia turned out to be the direct successor of the USSR and retained its status as a nuclear power and its place in the UN. The United States remained the only superpower, and American values ​​and ideology of life gradually began to be introduced into the territory of the post-Soviet space.

However, during the Cold War, two significant discoveries were made for global development: nuclear weapons and the first flight into space. And although the USSR cannot be called the winner in the race, the role of scientists and their discoveries in world experience is priceless; the space race between the USA and the USSR brought incredible achievements to the world.

About the first manned flight into space

For many centuries, space has excited the minds of scientists and seemed unattainable. However, scientific progress made it possible to take the first steps at the beginning of the twentieth century. Productive space exploration began with the launch into orbit of the notorious Belka and Strelka, who became the world's first cosmonauts and conquerors of outer space. Less than a year after this event, Soviet scientists dared to launch the first man into space. April 12, 1961 Soviet pilot-cosmonaut Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin went to explore the expanses of space on a spaceship . Gagarin's time in space was a whopping 108 minutes, which was incredible by those standards. The first manned space flight is recognized as a colossal success and achievement of Soviet scientists, and 1961 the start of the exploration of new unexplored territories of weightlessness and the triumph of human consciousness over unknown matter.

How did it happen?

The history of the first flight into space ambiguous, the newspapers largely embellished the events. And although Gagarin’s feat is not questioned, many of the inaccuracies of the flight were revealed only later. The first space rocket was carefully designed and built over a period of 50 years, undergoing many inspections, tests and tests. Baikonur Cosmodrome became the starting point of the first space flight.

Yuri Gagarin flew around orbits land, covering 41,000 km. The young pilot-cosmonaut became one of the most respected people in society, as well as an idol for hundreds of young people who dreamed of following him to conquer space. Despite the careful thought and planning of the first flight, many unpredictable events occurred during it. For example, before entering the Earth's atmosphere, the ship suffered an accident, causing it to somersault for 10 minutes. Landing near Saratov was also not planned; the cosmonaut missed by 2800 km. April 12, 1961 is the officially recognized date when celebrated Cosmonautics Day.

First human spacewalk

The second serious step towards space exploration was the entry of man into outer space. This mission was entrusted to the crew of the Voskhod-2 spacecraft, which consisted of Alexander Belyaev and Alexei Leonov.

The next goal of Soviet scientists was the release of man into outer space. In March 1965, the Voskhod 2 spacecraft was carried into outer space ship crew, which consisted of P.A. Belyaev and A.A. Leonova. 18th of March Alexey Arkhipovich Leonov carried out a spacewalk, the cosmonaut left the ship and moved 5 meters away from the ship. The time spent in outer space was 12 minutes, 9 seconds.

A photo of a smiling Leonov in a space helmet with the inscription “USSR” spread across all the newspapers of the world, adding to the fame of the Soviet Union. However, few people knew how much effort it took for the astronauts to train before the flight, and for the scientists to build an equipped spacecraft and spacesuits.

Special spacesuits called “Berkut” were developed especially for Voskhod-2, in which the cosmonauts could leave the ship’s territory and remain alive. The Berkut had an additional sealed layer, and on its back there was a backpack with a supply of oxygen. The suit was quite bulky and heavy, so the astronauts had to undergo additional training.

Scientists have built many theories regarding human behavior in outer space. Most of which were based on the impossibility of a person being in outer space: the astronaut would either be unable to move, or be welded to the ship, or simply go crazy. However, the pessimistic theories did not come true; at the appointed hour X, Leonov pushed off from the ship and gently floated into outer space. The astronaut felt well, as evidenced by his report, Leonov fully completed the entire planned program. Difficulties arose with returning to the ship, since the space suit, which had swelled in zero gravity, did not allow Leonov to get into the airlock. Leonov independently decided to lower the pressure in the Berkut and rushed into the airlock head first. When returning to Earth, an incident occurred - the ship's system malfunctioned, and the astronauts had to switch to manual control. The rocket landing took place in the wilderness of the Perm forests, the task force managed to save both heroes. The first human spacewalk was successfully completed, and Alexey Leonov forever made his name in the history of astronautics. Newspapers gave the USSR a new name - space superpower.

First woman's flight into space

Valentina Vladimirovna Tereshkova first female astronaut, going into the unknown space element. In June 1963, Valentina flew around the Earth 45 times on the Vostok-6 spacecraft, spending 71 hours in space.

The hours spent in space were far from the happiest in the woman’s life, since the hull of the ship itself was extremely cramped and uncomfortable, and during the flight many shortcomings of the system were revealed. In addition, the flight was extremely risky; none of the scientists had accurate data on the consequences of the influence of space on the female body and health.

Results of achievements

The space race is one of the key “battles” of the cold confrontation between the two superpowers. For 18 years, the USSR and the USA actively fought for the right to primacy in scientific achievements and space exploration.

Here are the ten most recognized space achievements:

  1. Development and construction of the first space rocket.
  2. An artificial lunar satellite was created and launched into space for the first time.
  3. The first creature (dog) sent into earth orbit.
  4. The first animal astronaut launched into Earth orbit.
  5. The launch of an artificial satellite of the Sun and the start of studies of our star.
  6. Station on the Moon.
  7. Man for the first time in space.
  8. First passage through outer space.
  9. Building a bridge between two planets.
  10. The first experiment with living plants and creatures during a flyby of the Moon.
  11. Station on Mars.

Man first flew into space in 1961, but even half a century later there are no exact answers to questions about how exactly space flight and prolonged stay in conditions of minimal gravity or weightlessness affects the human body.

In a new study, scientists decided to study the changes in the astronauts’ bodies a little deeper, almost at the molecular level.

Irreversible changes

A study of the health of astronauts after a long stay in space showed that there are a number of changes that greatly affect their health both during the flight and after. Many astronauts, after a certain period of time spent in zero gravity, are unable to regain their previous levels of physical fitness.

This is because microgravity conditions strain the human body and lead to its weakening. For example, the heart weakens due to loss of mass, since in weightlessness the blood is distributed differently and the heart beats slower.

In addition, bone mass density decreases due to the fact that the body is not affected by Earth's gravity. Changes in bone mass are observed already in the first two weeks in zero gravity, and after a long stay in space, it is almost impossible to restore the previous state of the tissue.

Changes in the body's immune system and in the metabolic process are especially strong.

The immune system

The immune system suffers from the fact that weightlessness is an extremely new condition for humans in terms of evolutionary development. For hundreds of thousands of years, humans have not encountered microgravity conditions and have proven to be extremely genetically unprepared for them.

Because of this, the immune system perceives weightlessness as a threat to the entire body as a whole and tries to use all possible defense mechanisms at once.

In addition, in conditions of isolation from familiar conditions, the human body is faced with a minimum amount of bacteria, viruses and microbes, which also negatively affects the immune system.

Metabolism

Changes in metabolism occur for a number of reasons. Firstly, the body's endurance decreases and muscle mass is lost due to the lack of physical activity that the body is accustomed to in gravity conditions.

Secondly, due to decreased endurance and aerobic exercise, the body consumes less oxygen and breaks down less fat.

Third, due to changes in the cardiovascular system, less oxygen reaches the muscles through the blood.

All this suggests that the human body is going through a difficult period of adaptation to the conditions of a long stay in space. However, how exactly and why do changes occur in the body?

Study of blood composition

Studies of the condition of astronauts before, during and after space missions have shown that changes occur in the immune system, muscle tone, metabolism and body temperature regulation, but scientists still do not understand the mechanisms that stimulate these changes.

It turns out that space flight reduces the content of various protein groups in the human body. Some of them quickly return to normal, but others find it much more difficult to reach a pre-flight state.

Progress of the study

To study the effect that prolonged exposure to orbit in microgravity has on blood protein levels, scientists studied the blood plasma of 18 Russian cosmonauts who had been on long-term missions to the International Space Station.

The first plasma sample was collected a month before the flight, the second sample was collected immediately after landing, and the final sample was collected a week after the mission.

In certain cases, astronauts took and studied samples themselves while on the ISS to provide more accurate indicators of how the levels of certain proteins in their blood were changing.

results

Just 24% of the protein groups analyzed were found in lower abundance immediately after landing on Earth and after seven days.

conclusions

Studying the difference in the content of proteins in the blood is one of the ways in which it is possible to explain some of the changes that occur in the body of an astronaut who has been in weightlessness for a long time.

For example, the study authors concluded that almost all of the 24% of proteins whose concentrations changed during space travel were associated with just a few body processes, such as fat metabolism, blood clotting and immunity.

12 April 10:14

58 years ago, on April 12, 1961, Yuri Gagarin became the first cosmonaut in the history of mankind to carry out a one-orbit flight around the Earth on the Vostok-1 spacecraft.

Yuri Gagarin - the world's first cosmonaut

The launch vehicle with the Vostok spacecraft on board was carried out from the Baikonur Cosmodrome at 9 hours 7 minutes. Preparations for the launch proceeded as usual. The only problem discovered when checking the tightness of the hatch through which Gagarin entered the ship was a poor fit of the lid. In the shortest possible time, the leading designer of the spacecraft (Oleg Genrikhovich Ivanovsky) unscrewed 30 nuts from the locks and adjusted the electrical contact, which was located where the lid was pressed.

Quote from Gagarin's report after the flight

“...hatch No. 1 was closed. I heard it being closed and the keys being knocked. Then they begin to open the hatch again. I see the hatch has been removed. I realized something was wrong. Sergei Pavlovich [Korolev] tells me: “Don’t worry, for some reason one contact is not pressed. Everything will be OK". By calculation, the boards on which the limit switches were installed were soon rearranged. Everything was corrected and the hatch cover was closed. Everything was fine".

Before finally boarding the spaceship, Yuri Gagarin raised both hands and said goodbye to the worried spectators.

Gagarin before the start. RSC Energia

After the launch, the Vostok launch vehicle operated as expected, but the third stage engines turned off later than necessary, and the vehicle was launched into an off-design orbit, which subsequently led to landing in an off-design area.

During the flight, Yuri Gagarin tested the simplest tasks: he ate, drank water, and wrote down his observations with a pencil. In addition, he recorded all his sensations using an onboard tape recorder.

Quote from Gagarin's report after the flight

“The reports were carried out in accordance with the instructions in telegraph and telephone modes. Took water and food. I took water and food normally and can take it. I didn’t feel any physiological difficulties. The feeling of weightlessness is somewhat unusual compared to earthly conditions. Here you get the feeling as if you are hanging horizontally on straps, as if you are in a suspended state. Apparently, the tightly fitted suspension system puts pressure on the chest, and therefore gives the impression that you are hanging. Then you get used to it, adapt to it. There were no bad feelings.

He made entries in the logbook, made reports, and worked as a telegraph key. When I ate food, drank water, I launched the tablet, and it “floated” in front of me with a pencil. Then I had to write down another report. I took the tablet, but the pencil was not there. Flew off somewhere. The eyelet was screwed to the pencil with a screw, but apparently it had to be either glued or wrapped tighter. This screw came loose and the pencil flew away. He rolled up the logbook and put it in his pocket. It won’t be useful anyway, there’s nothing to write with.”

At 9:57 a.m. the ship was over South America when Yuri Gagarin reported to Earth: “The flight is going well, I feel good.” After 23 minutes, the Vostok was already flying over Africa, then the major said that he tolerated weightlessness well. After 10 minutes the ship began braking.

Model of the Vostok-1 ship. Pline | Wikimedia Commons

It is noteworthy that the ship was under automatic control, since the developers did not know how the pilot’s psyche would react in space conditions. However, a special code that allowed the device to be switched to manual mode existed and was in a special envelope that had to be opened if necessary already in space. True, just before the start, Gagarin was informed about it.

The cabin of the ship "Vostok". IIET RAS

At the very end of the flight, the ship's control system did not pick up the momentum, the compartments did not separate in the normal order, and before entering the atmosphere the device began to spin randomly at a speed of one revolution per second. In denser layers of the atmosphere, the instrument and engine compartment was still able to separate from the descent vehicle.

Gagarin before the start. Roscosmos

According to the planned plan, Gagarin ejected at an altitude of seven kilometers and descended by parachute. After landing on the spacesuit, the valve that lets in outside air did not work, and the astronaut almost suffocated.

Quote from Gagarin’s report after the flight: “It was difficult to open the breathing valve in the air. It turned out that the valve ball, when being put on, got under the unmasking shell. Everything was so pulled in by the suspension system that I couldn’t reach it for about 6 minutes. Then he unfastened the unmasking shell and, using a mirror, pulled out the cable and opened the valve normally.”

Thanks to excellent preparation, Yuri Gagarin managed to land not in icy water, but on the bank of the Volga River in the Saratov region, near the city of Engels. Since the astronaut landed in an unplanned area, the first people he met were the wife of a local forester and her little granddaughter. Only then did the military arrive at the landing site and take Gagarin to the unit’s location.

Quote from Gagarin’s report after the flight “I went out onto the hill, I saw a woman with a girl coming towards me. She was about 800 meters from me. I went forward, intending to ask where the phone was. I walk towards her, look, the woman slows down her steps, the girl separates from her and heads back. I started waving my arms and shouting: “Your one, your own, Soviet, don’t be afraid, don’t be scared, come here.”

Over the phone, the hero reported: “Please convey to the Air Force Commander-in-Chief: I completed the task, landed in the given area, I feel good, there are no bruises or breakdowns. Gagarin."

The duration of the first space flight in history was 108 minutes.

In 2011, a full-length film was made about the flight of Yuri Gagarin with original video and audio recordings of the Vostok-1 mission.

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