Yuri Trivia:
Full Name: Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin
Born: 3/9/34 (Al Shepard was born 11/23)
Birthplace: Klushino, (near Smolensk, west of Moscow) Russia
Born on a collective farm
Died: 3/27/68
Height: 5’ 2”
Dad was a carpenter
Yuri was the 3rd of 4 children.
Family lived in Smolensk, which was under German occupation for 3 years.
Two older siblings were taken to forced labor camps in Germany during the war
Two favorite sports: Hockey (played goalie) and Basketball (coached a school team after Vostok1)
Joined the Air force 1955
Went to the Soviet Air Force Academy, graduated with honors in 1957
Stationed at a base near Norway, bad weather, little flying.
Met Valentina Goryacheva while in school, married in 1957
Had two daughters, Galya and Yelena (who much later became head of Russian museum in Moscow)
Selected for cosmonaut training 1959
How many original cosmonauts were there: 20
Gagarin further chosen for a special group called the Sochi Six
Backup pilot was: Gherman Titov
Rank at liftoff: Second Lieutenant
Rank at Landing: Major
Rank at death: Colonel
First fighter on becoming a military pilot: Mig 15
Number of flight hours before being accepted into astronaut corps: 75
Stationed near Norway so poor weather meant little flying
Not a test pilot
Flight of Vostok 1:
Call sign: “Siberian Pine” or “Cedar”
Gagarin told Kruschev after the flight that he had whistled "The Motherland Hears, The Motherland Knows" during the flight. The first two lines of the song are: "The Motherland hears, the Motherland knows/Where her son flies in the sky".[16]
Song was written by Dmitri Shostakovich
Launch site: Baikonur, Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic
Landing site: Smelkovka, Russian Soviet Socialist Republic
Liftoff scheduled for 9 am so spacecraft would be over Angola at retrofire. This would give the horizon sensors the best lighting for orientation.
Vostok 1 delayed because of faulty sensor on the door
Flight lasted 108 minutes
Spacecraft mass 10,420 lb
Flight was on total automatic control, Gagarin touched no controls
Gagarin was given the code key to initiate manual override, if necessary, by Kamanin
Apogee 327 KM (203 mi) – higher than planned due to late shutdown of one booster.
Perigee: 169 km (105 mi)
Orbital period 89.34 minutes
Orbital inclination 64.95°
Retro-rockets were liquid fueled.
Gagarin carried 10 days worth of supplies in case retros didn’t work, orbit would decay within a few days.
Service module failed to separate due to wire bundle, eventually burned off
Max G’s on reentry: 8 (Gagarin reported 10)
Ejected at what altitude: 23,000 feet
Soviets lied about him ejecting for years so he would qualify for FAI record as first in space
Landed in field, had to be taken to a phone so he could call and tell where he was. No real recovery crew stationed in the area to pick him up.
Visited visited Italy, Germany, Canada, Japan, Finland and England after the flight.
In England, toured in a Silver Rolls Royce with License plate YG-1
In 1962, he began serving as a deputy to the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union. He later returned to Star City, the cosmonaut facility, where he spent seven years working on designs for a reusable spacecraft
Jumped out of building in 1961 injuring his forehead. Jumped out to avoid his wife catching him in the room of another woman.
When was his first aircraft flight after Vostok 1: 3/27/68
Flight was his first training flight to start flying again 7 years after Vostok 1.
Gagarin died on that flight.
Type of plane flying when killed: Mig 15, same as what he flew prior to becoming a cosmonaut.
What caused the crash? Unknown, many theories
Where is Gagarin buried: Ashes interred in Kremlin Wall.
