WEBVTT - Who Was the First Person in Space? 0:00:01.920 --> 0:00:04.320 Welcome to brain Stuff, a production of I Heart Radio. 0:00:06.160 --> 0:00:10.039 Hey brain Stuff, Lauren vog obam here. There have been 0:00:10.080 --> 0:00:13.680 a lot of groundbreaking firsts in human history, but only 0:00:13.720 --> 0:00:16.479 one person can claim to be the first in outer space. 0:00:17.239 --> 0:00:21.320 That's Uri Gagarin, a Soviet cosmonaut who breached Art's atmosphere 0:00:21.440 --> 0:00:25.480 and zipped into orbit in nineteen sixty one. He stood 0:00:25.600 --> 0:00:28.360 just five ft two inches tall. That's one point six 0:00:28.400 --> 0:00:31.200 meters and slightly shorter than I am, which is impressive, 0:00:31.960 --> 0:00:35.360 but in the lore of space exploration, Gagarin casts an 0:00:35.479 --> 0:00:39.640 enormously long shadow. In both life and death, he left 0:00:39.640 --> 0:00:44.160 a legacy brimming with both outstanding achievements and unanswered questions. 0:00:46.080 --> 0:00:49.440 Born in nineteen thirty four near Moscow, Gagarin was the 0:00:49.479 --> 0:00:52.199 son of a carpenter and a milkmaid. When he was 0:00:52.200 --> 0:00:55.840 still a child, Nazi forces invaded the USSR and occupied 0:00:55.840 --> 0:00:59.360 the town. Everyone suffered. Two of his siblings wound up 0:00:59.360 --> 0:01:04.320 in labor camp, but survived the war. Later, Gagarin attended 0:01:04.400 --> 0:01:07.440 various technical schools, but it was a flying club that 0:01:07.520 --> 0:01:10.760 really grabbed his attention. Once he had his first taste 0:01:10.760 --> 0:01:13.120 of flight, he embraced his new passion and used his 0:01:13.160 --> 0:01:17.720 weekends learning to fly. He joined the Soviet Air Force 0:01:17.800 --> 0:01:20.959 and became a full fledged fighter pilot. In the meantime, 0:01:21.000 --> 0:01:24.440 he married Valentino Gryacheva, with whom he had two daughters. 0:01:25.840 --> 0:01:29.400 In nineteen sixty, Soviet authorities chose twenty men to take 0:01:29.440 --> 0:01:33.600 part in the country's fledgling space program. The commission specified 0:01:33.600 --> 0:01:35.840 that the men be between twenty five and thirty years 0:01:35.880 --> 0:01:38.839 old and less than five feet seven inches tall that's 0:01:38.880 --> 0:01:43.440 one point seven ms. Gagarin checked both boxes, and he 0:01:43.600 --> 0:01:46.440 was one of the lucky candidates selected for further training. 0:01:47.520 --> 0:01:51.000 It started with rigorous physical training, which included dozens of 0:01:51.040 --> 0:01:55.440 parachute jumps, over water, oxygen starvation tests, and isolation chamber 0:01:55.480 --> 0:01:58.720 procedures meant to weed out anyone who might melt down 0:01:58.720 --> 0:02:04.080 psychologically in space. Though the process was competitive, Gagarin stood 0:02:04.080 --> 0:02:08.320 out for both his physical skills and his exceptional personality. 0:02:08.919 --> 0:02:12.520 He was competent and simply likable, in part because of 0:02:12.520 --> 0:02:15.960 the ever present smile on his face. His positive aro 0:02:16.200 --> 0:02:18.240 was such a large part of why he was ultimately 0:02:18.320 --> 0:02:21.480 chosen for the mission. Just one week before launch, the 0:02:21.520 --> 0:02:24.480 Soviets knew that there soon to be famous Cosnaught would 0:02:24.480 --> 0:02:26.240 need to look good in front of a camera for 0:02:26.320 --> 0:02:31.920 propaganda purposes. Gagarins beaming smile fit the bill. On April 0:02:31.960 --> 0:02:35.040 twelfth of nineteen sixty one, the rocket lifted off from 0:02:35.040 --> 0:02:38.960 the cosmod Realme Just minutes later. The former farm boy 0:02:39.160 --> 0:02:43.760 was the first human in space. We spoke with Howard McCarty, 0:02:44.000 --> 0:02:47.920 as space policy expert and public affairs professor at American University. 0:02:48.560 --> 0:02:51.960 He said Gagaren was very charismatic and well liked within 0:02:52.000 --> 0:02:55.720 the Cosmonaut Corps. He was apparently fearless. While the chief 0:02:55.760 --> 0:02:59.840 space flight engineer was popping tranquilizers, Gagarin was sitting calmly 0:02:59.840 --> 0:03:04.280 in capsule in nine six one. Very little was known 0:03:04.320 --> 0:03:06.680 about space flight and what would happen to a human 0:03:06.720 --> 0:03:09.720 who was waitless for longer than a few seconds, So 0:03:09.880 --> 0:03:13.120 there was a lot riding on this. Gagar In orbited 0:03:13.120 --> 0:03:15.560 our planet just a single time, for a hundred and 0:03:15.639 --> 0:03:18.680 eight minutes. He reached a maximum height of two hundred 0:03:18.800 --> 0:03:23.240 three miles or three seven kilometers. During the flight, he ate, 0:03:23.400 --> 0:03:28.639 drank and monitored the onboard systems. McCarty said Gagarin had 0:03:28.639 --> 0:03:32.120 no control over his spacecraft. According to sources at NASSA, 0:03:32.240 --> 0:03:35.360 flight controllers gave Gagarin a key to the controls for 0:03:35.480 --> 0:03:38.800 use in an emergency, which he did not use. Otherwise 0:03:38.840 --> 0:03:43.320 he was just a passenger on the spacecraft, and gagarans 0:03:43.320 --> 0:03:46.320 returned to Earth. Wasn't the tidy sort of splash down 0:03:46.360 --> 0:03:50.280 that we're used to witnessing these days, McCarty said. Gagarin 0:03:50.400 --> 0:03:53.160 did not land with his space capsule. He jumped out 0:03:53.160 --> 0:03:55.760 of it and parachuted to the ground, sort of a 0:03:55.760 --> 0:04:00.280 hair raising way to land. Even before he landed, the 0:04:00.320 --> 0:04:04.360 Soviets were trumpeting the trailblazing space flight, his safe return 0:04:04.600 --> 0:04:08.760 guaranteed worldwide. Celebrity streets were named for him, and he 0:04:08.800 --> 0:04:11.160 was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. 0:04:11.640 --> 0:04:14.800 Some called him the modern day Christopher Columbus. He traveled 0:04:14.840 --> 0:04:17.560 the world living proof of the success of the Soviet 0:04:17.600 --> 0:04:21.920 space program. The celebrity Cosnat visited dozens of countries in 0:04:22.000 --> 0:04:25.240 celebration of his incredible space flight, but he was barred 0:04:25.279 --> 0:04:28.800 from entering the United States. President John F. Kennedy wanted 0:04:28.839 --> 0:04:32.279 no part of celebrating the Soviet Union's accomplishment, which cast 0:04:32.400 --> 0:04:36.839 the US as being behind in the space race. Once 0:04:36.880 --> 0:04:40.960 his publicity tour ended, Gagarin slowly returned to flying. The 0:04:41.000 --> 0:04:44.000 Air Force promoted him multiple times, in large part to 0:04:44.080 --> 0:04:46.440 keep him out of airplanes and safely on the ground. 0:04:46.960 --> 0:04:51.360 No one wanted their international superstar to die young, yet 0:04:51.520 --> 0:04:55.839 his bout with fame was unsettling. Gagarin took to drinking heavily, 0:04:56.000 --> 0:05:00.240 which concerned his superiors. Still, he trained for space and 0:05:00.320 --> 0:05:02.560 was named a backup for the so Use one mission, 0:05:03.279 --> 0:05:05.640 and it was a lucky thing for him too. The 0:05:05.760 --> 0:05:09.239 nineteen sixty seven mission failed catastrophically when the landing module's 0:05:09.240 --> 0:05:12.040 parachute failed to open, ending with the first in flight 0:05:12.080 --> 0:05:16.880 spacecraft fatality. Gagarin gave up drinking. The next year, he 0:05:16.920 --> 0:05:20.839 recommitted himself to flying and even participated in aerospace engineering 0:05:20.960 --> 0:05:24.520 in hopes of helping to create a reusable spacecraft. In 0:05:24.680 --> 0:05:27.960 nineteen sixty eight, the famed pilot and cosmonaut took off 0:05:28.000 --> 0:05:32.040 on a routine training flight. Shortly thereafter, the plane crashed 0:05:32.120 --> 0:05:36.160 near town just outside Moscow. Both Gagaran and the flight 0:05:36.200 --> 0:05:41.720 instructor perished. Gagarin was just thirty two years old. Immediately, 0:05:41.800 --> 0:05:44.960 the Soviets rushed to gloss over the incident, covering up 0:05:45.000 --> 0:05:50.520 details for decades lacking convincing explanations, conspiracy theories abounded, but 0:05:50.760 --> 0:05:55.320 none of them stuck in New evidence emerged thanks to 0:05:55.320 --> 0:05:58.880 the investigative work of Alexei Leonov, former cosmonaut who was 0:05:58.960 --> 0:06:01.600 troubled by the death of his friend and fellow space traveler. 0:06:02.680 --> 0:06:06.839 His unconfirmed explanation for the crash an error and air 0:06:06.880 --> 0:06:11.240 traffic control during the fateful flight. A Soviet plane much 0:06:11.360 --> 0:06:15.240 larger than the training flight model could have violated Gagarin's airspace. 0:06:15.760 --> 0:06:19.120 The turbulence could have caused Gagaran to lose control and 0:06:19.240 --> 0:06:23.800 ultimately plunged to his death, And perhaps the embarrassment of 0:06:23.880 --> 0:06:26.839 losing a national icon to such a simple error was 0:06:26.920 --> 0:06:31.599 too much to admit publicly, Or maybe, as Leonov speculated, 0:06:31.920 --> 0:06:34.080 the authorities didn't want to make public that there was 0:06:34.160 --> 0:06:37.520 a lapse so close to Moscow. We may never know 0:06:37.600 --> 0:06:41.279 for sure. What we do know is that Ggarans first 0:06:41.440 --> 0:06:45.280 and only space mission left an indelible mark on our world. 0:06:46.520 --> 0:06:49.560 But we also spoke via email with Amy Foster, assistant 0:06:49.600 --> 0:06:53.039 history professor at the University of Central Florida. She said 0:06:53.520 --> 0:06:55.960 people had been dreaming of flying in the air from 0:06:56.000 --> 0:06:59.160 millennia before the right Brothers achieved that in nineteen o three, 0:06:59.800 --> 0:07:02.599 the idea of humans flying in space was even more lofty. 0:07:03.160 --> 0:07:05.760 While both the United States and the Soviet Union had 0:07:05.760 --> 0:07:09.159 successfully launched living creatures by the time of Gagarans flight, 0:07:09.640 --> 0:07:12.240 there were still questions about how the mission would affect 0:07:12.240 --> 0:07:16.320 a human so Ggarans flight made flying in space not 0:07:16.440 --> 0:07:25.520 only achievable, but also a realistic endeavor. Today's episode was 0:07:25.560 --> 0:07:28.280 written by Nathan Chandler and produced by Tyler Clang. For 0:07:28.400 --> 0:07:30.480 more on this and lots of other far flung topics, 0:07:30.560 --> 0:07:34.080 visit housemufworks dot com. Brain Stuff is production of iHeart Radio. 0:07:34.320 --> 0:07:37.120 For more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, 0:07:37.240 --> 0:07:39.920 Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.