When the first astronaut flew into space. Myth of Soviet propaganda: Gagarin was not the first in space

Attention, minute readiness!
Key to start!
There is a key to start!

Broach one!
There is a broach one!
Purge!
There is a purge!
Drain key!
There is a key to the drain!
Ignition!
Understood you, ignition is given.
Advance!
There is a preliminary!
Intermediate!
Home!
Climb!

35 seconds, normal flight. Altitude 19 kilometers. The temperature outside is 55°C. Here the water boils at the temperature of a human body, and stars are visible in the blue-black sky during the day.

60 seconds, normal flight. Altitude 32 kilometers. In the minute that has passed since the launch, the V-2 rocket gained speed of about 1600 m / s (about 6 thousand km / h).

At this moment, observers on Earth see how the second stage, called VAC-Corporal, separated, and, having sharply increased its speed, went to storm the maximum height.

100 seconds, flight is normal. The VAK-Corporal rocket reached an altitude of 110 km. The “Karman line” has been passed, which defines the border between astronautics and aeronautics: at this height, all the laws of aerodynamics become meaningless, because to create a lifting force, it will be necessary to exceed the first space velocity (7.9 km / s).

145 seconds, normal flight. Altitude 160 kilometers. Temperature overboard + 1500°С. But ultra-low air pressure, close to vacuum, makes the very concept of temperature meaningless - here it only indicates a very high speed of movement of air molecules. A person who finds himself in the thermosphere without a space suit will feel only the icy cold of outer space.

150 seconds from launch. The first stage - the V-2 rocket - reached a height of 161 km and fell down into the abyss of the earth's atmosphere ... At this time, VAK-Corporal flies into space at a speed of 2.5 km / s.

200 seconds, normal flight. An altitude of 250 km has been reached. The boundary of the lowest possible orbit with short-term stability. An artificial satellite of the Earth can exist here for several weeks.

300 seconds from start. The V-2 rocket crashed in the desert 36 kilometers north of the launch site. At this time, VAK-Corporal continues to rise to the stars.

Discovered the wreckage of the "V-2"

390 seconds, normal flight. The second stage reached a height of 402 kilometers. At this altitude, the vacuum is so deep that it cannot be achieved even in the most modern laboratories under ground conditions. Thus, the VAK-Corporal rocket reached airless space.

12 minutes, end of flight. Rocket "VAK-Corporal" crashed on the earth's surface. Despite the fact that radars accurately determined the area where the second stage fell, its remains were found only a year later, 135 kilometers from the launch site.

So, on February 24, 1949, the American Bumper rocket and space system opened the way to the Stars for Mankind. The reader must have smiled after reading this phrase - after all, everyone knows that the first space satellite was launched in the Soviet Union. On October 4, 1957, the R-7 ballistic missile, the legendary "Royal Seven", carried a steel ball with a diameter of 58 centimeters into the night sky of Baikonur, which became a symbol of the beginning of the Space Age. Mankind has conquered the gravity of the Earth.

In pursuit of sensation

Legends about the space program of the Third Reich and the secret fascist bases on the moon still do not leave the pages of the "yellow press". Indeed, who was the first to go into outer space? German "astronaut" Kurt Keller, who claims to have made a suborbital flight on a V-2 back in 1944? Or maybe the first in space was Dr. Zenger's fantastic rocket plane? After all, is the team of American researchers who launched a rocket to a height of 400 kilometers in 1949 worthy of the palm tree?
It depends on what is meant by "launch into space." If this is an ordinary suborbital flight along a parabolic trajectory, then, undoubtedly, the Germans were the first - back in the years of World War II, 4300 V-2 ballistic missiles fell on London!

Here the question immediately arises: where is the boundary of the earth's atmosphere and where does the Cosmos begin? For example, the United States officially draws an airspace boundary at an altitude of 50 miles (80 km). Russia calls the number 100 kilometers. Theodore von Karman summed up the heated debate by proposing, in my opinion, an ingenious solution - the Cosmos begins where the first cosmic velocity is required to create a minimum aerodynamic lift. This happens just at an altitude of about 100 kilometers. The top of the flight path of the V-2 ballistic missile exceeded 100 km, in other words, the German rocket was the first to enter outer space. Let it be just for a few seconds.

Note. The secret developments of the Third Reich are often given unfair importance. In fact, the "fantastic" German designs largely reflected intentions, not capabilities. After the war, not a single operating nuclear reactor was discovered in Germany. German jets in reality turned out to be unreliable "wunderwaffles" with flaming engines and jammed guns - at the same time, the Allies got their own jets, in no way inferior to the German Schwalbe and Blitzbombers. The Soviet school of tank building surpassed the German one, and the Americans were a decade ahead of the Reich in terms of radar and communications systems. Of the thousands of "supermodern" German submarines, 783 remained lying at the bottom of the Atlantic. The vaunted Wasserfall anti-aircraft missiles did not shoot down a single aircraft, and the V-2 launches were no more useful than the Society for the Study of the Aryan Race.

And what, then, is the meaning of the achievement of American rocket scientists, who raised a container with scientific equipment to a height of 400 kilometers above the Earth? After all, this is an ordinary suborbital flight, which differs from V-2 flights only by a higher trajectory - VAK-Corporal climbed to where the ISS currently plows outer space (which, of course, is impressive - after all, it was 1949 in the yard year). The only important advantage of the Bumper project (a wild symbiosis of a captured V-2 and an American meteorological rocket) is a two-stage design, which made it possible to multiply the maximum height of the rocket. However, when the joking question is asked, "Who was the first in space?" American astronautics enthusiasts often cite the VAK-Corporal flight as an example.

Probably it is not worth telling for a long time in which country the first artificial satellite of the Earth was created and who was the first astronaut. The fundamental difference between Sputnik-1 and VAK-Corporal was the elliptical flight path of the Soviet spacecraft.

Launch trajectories for the Bumper project. In addition to flights into outer space, launches were carried out to the maximum flight range.

As for the level of their technological performance, the two-stage Bumper and the R-7 launch vehicle differed as much as the Chinese firecracker and the Hellfire guided missile. By the end of the 40s, the great-grandmother of all modern V-2 rockets was already largely an outdated project, with a bunch of flaws and unsatisfactory performance. Due to the lack of the necessary knowledge and technology at that time, American specialists were never able to ensure the effective separation of the rocket stages. From the point of view of logic, the separation of the first stage should occur at the moment when the fuel in its tanks was completely used up, alas, this was impossible on the Bumper, because. the acceleration of the V-2 in the last seconds of its engine operation exceeded the initial acceleration that the VAC-Corporal could develop. Many questions arose with the automatic start of the second stage engine at an altitude of 30 kilometers - the fuel components burned perfectly on the ground, but in a rarefied atmosphere they instantly evaporated and mixed, which led to a premature explosion in the fuel lines and the destruction of the rocket. Many problems arose with the stabilization of the rocket on the upper segment of the trajectory - all aerodynamic surfaces turned out to be useless in a vacuum. "VAK-Corporal" can be called a space system with a big stretch - it does not fit this title according to any of the criteria.
In a word, the truth remains unshakable - the championship in the space race belongs to the USSR.

The first images of the Earth obtained from near space:

Half a century has passed since the moment when people first conquered space. This happened on April 12, 1961. For the first time man saw our blue planet from space. Yuri Gagarin - the whole world recognized this name in a matter of moments! Yuri Gagarin is the very first cosmonaut on the planet. Initially, a group of 19 pilots was recruited for space flight. Subsequently, six were selected from this group.

During the year they were intensively preparing for the first flight under a serious program. And only four months before the flight, the leaders of the Training Center made a choice out of six candidates. Yuri Gagarin.

The most interesting thing is that technical knowledge and fitness level were not dominant. The designer Sergei Korolev and the first secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU Nikita Khrushchev understood perfectly well that the first person who had been in space would become the face of the country. And the charm of Yuri Gagarin became a weighty criterion given the equally brilliant level of training of all applicants for the flight.

The launch of the Vostok spacecraft, carrying the very first cosmonaut of the planet, took place on an April day fifty years ago at the Baikonur cosmodrome. Yuri Gagarin made one revolution around the Earth. The first space flight lasted one hundred and eight minutes.

For the first time, Yu. Gagarin "fell ill" with the sky during his studies at the Saratov Industrial College, having entered the flying club (1951 - 1955). After graduating from a technical school with a “red diploma”, he entered the Chkalov Military Aviation School for Pilots named after K.E. Voroshilov in the city of Orenburg. After graduating with honors from college in 1957, he was sent to the Arctic for further service. Just in those years, the recruitment of young pilots for retraining for "new equipment" began. Due to secrecy, "new technology" meant spaceships.

Having learned about the new recruitment, Gagarin in 1959 wrote an application with a request to be enrolled in such a composition. In 1967, the development of a new project for the "lunar program" and a new spacecraft "Soyuz" began. Vladimir Komarov and Yuri Gagarin were appointed for testing. In the course of preparation, Gagarin was appointed understudy.

By October 1959, the "piggy bank" of the future first cosmonaut had 265 hours of air raid. For the first space flight, Gagarin was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union and advanced to the rank of major.

In 1968, during one of the training flights on the Mig-15UTI aircraft, Yuri Alekseevich Gagarin died under unclear circumstances. The very first cosmonaut of the planet was buried on Red Square near the Kremlin wall.

The whole world knows that Yuri Gagarin was the first to fly into space, but he was far from the only contender for the title of the first cosmonaut. The detachment recruited to prepare for space flight included 20 pilots. Of these, in the end, only 12 people went into space, the last to fly was Viktor Gorbatko.

In 1959, the Central Committee of the CPSU and the Council of Ministers of the USSR decided to select and train cosmonauts for the first flight on the Vostok spacecraft. The Center for Military Research National Hospital was assigned to do this. It was decided to choose from fighter pilots, as it was assumed that they had the most suitable characteristics for this. The selection was tough both according to medical criteria and according to physical data - the candidate should not have been older than 35 years old, up to 175 cm tall and weighing up to 75 kg. No one was told why they were being selected, it was reported that they were allegedly for testing new equipment.
The commission received 3461 applications from pilots and selected 347 people for the initial interview. Since the medical examination was very thorough, and the upcoming loads were serious, not everyone decided to become astronauts, and 72 pilots refused to participate in the program. 206 people were admitted for further tests. Only 29 people were able to complete all stages of the medical examination.

From left to right, sitting - P. Popovich, V. Gorbatko, S. Khrunov, Yu. Gagarin, S. Korolev, N. Koroleva with her daughter Popovich Natasha, 1st head of the Cosmonaut Training Center E. Karpov, N. Nikitin, head of department TsNIIAK E. Fedorov. Middle row: A. Leonov, A. Nikolaev, M. Rafikov, D. Zaikin, B. Volynov, G. Titov, G. Nelyubov, V. Bykovsky, G. Shonin. Top row: V. Filatiev, I. Anikeev, P. Belyaev.
On January 11, 1960, a special military unit 26266 was created, which is now the Cosmonaut Training Center. Colonel of the medical service Yevgeny Karpov was appointed head. And the future cosmonauts formed the Air Force group No. 1.
On March 7, 1960, 12 people were enrolled in the first cosmonaut corps: Yuri Gagarin, Valery Bykovsky, Ivan Anikeev, Boris Volynov, Viktor Gorbatko, Vladimir Komarov, Alexei Leonov, Grigory Nelyubov, Andriyan Nikolaev, German Titov, Georgy Shonin and Pavel Popovich. Later, 8 more pilots joined them: Dmitry Zaikin, Evgeny Khrunov, Valentin Filatiev, Valentin Varlamov, Valentin Bondarenko, Pavel Belyaev, Mars Rafikov and Anatoly Kartashov. For preparation, they invited the pilot who saved the Chelyuskinites, Hero of the Soviet Union and participant in the Great Patriotic War Nikolai Kamanin.
By April 1961, three were selected for the flight: Titov, Gagarin and Nelyubov. They wrote down the appeal of the first cosmonauts to the Soviet people and on April 12 all three were at Baikonur. Titov was an understudy for Gagarin, Nelyubov was supposed to replace his comrades in case of force majeure.

Gagarin at Baikonur before the flight
Nelyubov never flew into space. Because of his quick temper, he was expelled from the detachment and ended his life very sadly - in 1966 he was hit by a train while drunk.
This is not the only time when the life of the astronauts from the first detachment was tragically cut short. Gagarin crashed during an unsuccessful training flight on an airplane in 1968, a year earlier Vladimir Komarov had died during the landing of the Soyuz-1 spacecraft.

German Titov and Andriyan Nikolaev during training, 1964
The youngest member of the detachment, Valentin Bondarenko, burned down in the pressure chamber. On March 23, 1961, he completed a 10-day stay in the cell and, after wiping the places on the body to which the sensors were attached, threw away the cotton wool. She hit a red-hot spiral and flared up, rather the entire chamber was filled with fire. When Bondarenko was taken out, his body was severely burned. Doctors tried to save the astronaut, but to no avail.
Most of those who never flew into space went on to careers in aviation or stayed in the space industry. The same 12, who were still lucky enough to become the first astronauts, flew in this order:
According to the Vostok program: Yuri Gagarin on April 12, 1961, German Titov on August 6-7, 1961, Andriyan Nikolaev on August 11-15, 1962, Pavel Popovich on August 12-15, 1962, Valery Bykovsky on June 14-19, 1963.
According to the Voskhod program: Vladimir Komarov October 12, 1964, Pavel Belyaev and Alexei Leonov March 18-19, 1965.
Under the Soyuz program: Boris Volynov and Yevgeny Khrunov January 15-18, 1969, Georgy Shonin October 11-16, 1969, Viktor Gorbatko October 12-17, 1969.

Vladislav Volkov and Viktor Gorbatko during training in weightlessness
It so happened that Gorbatko was the last of the detachment who first flew into space. However, unlike the others, who accounted for only one or two flights, Viktor Gorbatko, like Valery Bykovsky, was lucky enough to fly into space three times - also on February 7-25, 1977 on Soyuz-24 and July 23-31, 1980 on Soyuz-37. Two years after his third flight, Gorbatko retired, like many of his comrades in the early 80s. Boris Volynov had the longest experience of the members of the first detachment, he served until 1990, having given 30 years to space. Together with Valery Bykovsky and the first man to walk in outer space, Alexei Leonov, Volynov remains one of the living members of the first cosmonaut corps of the USSR.

The news of the flight of the first man into space shook the whole world. Today, everyone on the planet knows that the first manned flight into space took place on April 12, 1961 and the name of this astronaut was . This day is known as International Cosmonautics Day.

However, the very first flight into space in the world was made not by people, but by an animal. It was they who had to experience all the difficulties of space travel, so that scientists could maximally secure human flight.

From the beginning of the fifties to the sixties of the last century, scientists conducted a series of experiments on animals, in which they studied the effect of overloads, weightlessness and vibration on a living organism. The first testers were not put into orbit. They flew rockets along a parabolic trajectory. The most suitable candidates for such tests were dogs. Of all the applicants, the choice fell on the mongrels, since they were more enduring than thoroughbred candidates.

First dogs in space

The first test dogs did not reach outer space. On July 22, 1951, rootless dogs named Dezik and Gypsy made the first suborbital flight to an altitude of eighty-seven kilometers seven hundred meters. The R-1V rocket was launched from the Kapustin Yar cosmodrome. This mission was successful and after it five more launches took place with different dogs.

Another series of launches was carried out in 1954-1956. The purpose of these missions was to test the suits in the conditions of depressurization of the ship. The dog was sent to a height of one hundred and ten kilometers. Most of the animals tolerated the stress well, but in subsequent trials, five out of twelve dogs died.

In 1957, animals were first launched into orbit. It was a breakthrough year in astronautics. The very first dogs in space had to experience prolonged weightlessness, temperature fluctuations and g-forces during launch. The first astronaut was destined to become a dog named Laika. She liked exemplary behavior and pleasant appearance. The dog made four orbits around the earth and unfortunately died due to a malfunction in the thermoregulation system. However, Laika still had to die, since the launch was calculated only one way.

Belka and Strelka

The next step was to launch the animals on the descent vehicle. The dogs Belka and Strelka, together with several dozen mice and two rats, were the first to make a successful flight in space and return to Earth. August 19, 1960 is actually the date of the first flight into space with a successful outcome for the test animals. It was a big step towards space exploration, because the information collected during the flight became invaluable material for further research.

Other animals

However, in addition to dogs, other animals went into space. In particular, monkeys participated in suborbital and orbital flights, as they are the closest in physiology to humans. In the United States, the first monkey was launched into space around 1948. In France, the monkey was sent into space in 1967. In the USSR, monkeys were used for launches into orbit in 1983 and 1996. In the first launches, the mortality among monkeys was quite high.

Felicette the cat

In addition, cats were used for space travel. The first suborbital astronaut in France was a cat named Felix. But the first orbital flight was made by a cat named Felicette. It happened on October 18, 1963. It is interesting to note that the cat Felix was originally appointed as the main candidate for this flight, but shortly before the start he escaped and he had to look for a replacement. Felicette the cat was launched into space from the Sahara desert. The rocket rose to a height of two hundred kilometers, after which the capsule with the cat separated and went back to Earth by parachute.

Scientists started sending animals into space long before the first landing of people on the moon and a little before Yuri Gagarin made his historic flight. The main purpose of such experiments was to test the effect of weightlessness on living organisms. The first animals in space were sent there twelve years before 1961.

The first to be specially sent into space were fruit flies. Image Source: Wikipedia

The first terrestrial living organisms that ended up in space were not animals, because, most likely, bacteria or other microorganisms got into space along with the first rocket launches, and the first animals, and the first living creatures specially sent into space, were Drosophila fruit flies. The Americans sent a batch of flies into space on February 20, 1947 aboard a V2 rocket. The purpose of the experiment was to study the effect of radiation at high altitudes. The flies returned unharmed in their capsule, which landed successfully using a parachute.

However, this was only a suborbital flight, which a little later, a monkey named Albert 2 set off on the same V2 rocket. Unfortunately, the parachute of the Albert 2 capsule did not open, and the first animal in space died upon impact with the earth's surface. It is worth adding that the monkey Albert (1) could become the first animal in space, but his rocket did not reach the conditional boundary of space at an altitude of 100 km.

Albert-2

The first higher living organisms in space that survived the flight and successfully landed on Earth were the dogs Gypsy and Dezik, sent by the USSR on July 22, 1951 on the R-1V rocket. The flight to landing lasted about 20 minutes. No physiological abnormalities were found in dogs. Dezik and Gypsy successfully endured overload and weightlessness.

But the first animals in space were only pioneering testers who paved the way for the first flight in history to place an animal in Earth orbit. This animal was the dog Laika, one of the most famous astronaut dogs. It was launched into space on the Sputnik-2 spacecraft on November 3, 1957 from the Baikonur cosmodrome. This event was a huge achievement, but, no matter how sad it was, the return of Laika to Earth was not possible and was not planned at that time. During the flight, 5-7 hours after launch, the temperature inside the capsule exceeded 40 ° C and the dog died from stress and overheating, although scientists expected that it would live for about 7 days. These details were not reported in the media, instead it was said that Laika was euthanized on the 7th day of the flight. The spacecraft itself burned up in the atmosphere on the 162nd day of the mission, April 14, 1958.

Laika in his flight module.

The very first animals that made an orbital flight and returned to Earth alive were the same Belka and Strelka. The rocket launch with them on board took place almost 3 years after Laika's flight.