Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff, a production of I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: Hey brain Stuff, Lauren vog obam here. There have been
Speaker 1: a lot of groundbreaking firsts in human history, but only
Speaker 1: one person can claim to be the first in outer space.
Speaker 1: That's Uri Gagarin, a Soviet cosmonaut who breached Art's atmosphere
Speaker 1: and zipped into orbit in nineteen sixty one. He stood
Speaker 1: just five ft two inches tall. That's one point six
Speaker 1: meters and slightly shorter than I am, which is impressive,
Speaker 1: but in the lore of space exploration, Gagarin casts an
Speaker 1: enormously long shadow. In both life and death, he left
Speaker 1: a legacy brimming with both outstanding achievements and unanswered questions.
Speaker 1: Born in nineteen thirty four near Moscow, Gagarin was the
Speaker 1: son of a carpenter and a milkmaid. When he was
Speaker 1: still a child, Nazi forces invaded the USSR and occupied
Speaker 1: the town. Everyone suffered. Two of his siblings wound up
Speaker 1: in labor camp, but survived the war. Later, Gagarin attended
Speaker 1: various technical schools, but it was a flying club that
Speaker 1: really grabbed his attention. Once he had his first taste
Speaker 1: of flight, he embraced his new passion and used his
Speaker 1: weekends learning to fly. He joined the Soviet Air Force
Speaker 1: and became a full fledged fighter pilot. In the meantime,
Speaker 1: he married Valentino Gryacheva, with whom he had two daughters.
Speaker 1: In nineteen sixty, Soviet authorities chose twenty men to take
Speaker 1: part in the country's fledgling space program. The commission specified
Speaker 1: that the men be between twenty five and thirty years
Speaker 1: old and less than five feet seven inches tall that's
Speaker 1: one point seven ms. Gagarin checked both boxes, and he
Speaker 1: was one of the lucky candidates selected for further training.
Speaker 1: It started with rigorous physical training, which included dozens of
Speaker 1: parachute jumps, over water, oxygen starvation tests, and isolation chamber
Speaker 1: procedures meant to weed out anyone who might melt down
Speaker 1: psychologically in space. Though the process was competitive, Gagarin stood
Speaker 1: out for both his physical skills and his exceptional personality.
Speaker 1: He was competent and simply likable, in part because of
Speaker 1: the ever present smile on his face. His positive aro
Speaker 1: was such a large part of why he was ultimately
Speaker 1: chosen for the mission. Just one week before launch, the
Speaker 1: Soviets knew that there soon to be famous Cosnaught would
Speaker 1: need to look good in front of a camera for
Speaker 1: propaganda purposes. Gagarins beaming smile fit the bill. On April
Speaker 1: twelfth of nineteen sixty one, the rocket lifted off from
Speaker 1: the cosmod Realme Just minutes later. The former farm boy
Speaker 1: was the first human in space. We spoke with Howard McCarty,
Speaker 1: as space policy expert and public affairs professor at American University.
Speaker 1: He said Gagaren was very charismatic and well liked within
Speaker 1: the Cosmonaut Corps. He was apparently fearless. While the chief
Speaker 1: space flight engineer was popping tranquilizers, Gagarin was sitting calmly
Speaker 1: in capsule in nine six one. Very little was known
Speaker 1: about space flight and what would happen to a human
Speaker 1: who was waitless for longer than a few seconds, So
Speaker 1: there was a lot riding on this. Gagar In orbited
Speaker 1: our planet just a single time, for a hundred and
Speaker 1: eight minutes. He reached a maximum height of two hundred
Speaker 1: three miles or three seven kilometers. During the flight, he ate,
Speaker 1: drank and monitored the onboard systems. McCarty said Gagarin had
Speaker 1: no control over his spacecraft. According to sources at NASSA,
Speaker 1: flight controllers gave Gagarin a key to the controls for
Speaker 1: use in an emergency, which he did not use. Otherwise
Speaker 1: he was just a passenger on the spacecraft, and gagarans
Speaker 1: returned to Earth. Wasn't the tidy sort of splash down
Speaker 1: that we're used to witnessing these days, McCarty said. Gagarin
Speaker 1: did not land with his space capsule. He jumped out
Speaker 1: of it and parachuted to the ground, sort of a
Speaker 1: hair raising way to land. Even before he landed, the
Speaker 1: Soviets were trumpeting the trailblazing space flight, his safe return
Speaker 1: guaranteed worldwide. Celebrity streets were named for him, and he
Speaker 1: was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.
Speaker 1: Some called him the modern day Christopher Columbus. He traveled
Speaker 1: the world living proof of the success of the Soviet
Speaker 1: space program. The celebrity Cosnat visited dozens of countries in
Speaker 1: celebration of his incredible space flight, but he was barred
Speaker 1: from entering the United States. President John F. Kennedy wanted
Speaker 1: no part of celebrating the Soviet Union's accomplishment, which cast
Speaker 1: the US as being behind in the space race. Once
Speaker 1: his publicity tour ended, Gagarin slowly returned to flying. The
Speaker 1: Air Force promoted him multiple times, in large part to
Speaker 1: keep him out of airplanes and safely on the ground.
Speaker 1: No one wanted their international superstar to die young, yet
Speaker 1: his bout with fame was unsettling. Gagarin took to drinking heavily,
Speaker 1: which concerned his superiors. Still, he trained for space and
Speaker 1: was named a backup for the so Use one mission,
Speaker 1: and it was a lucky thing for him too. The
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty seven mission failed catastrophically when the landing module's
Speaker 1: parachute failed to open, ending with the first in flight
Speaker 1: spacecraft fatality. Gagarin gave up drinking. The next year, he
Speaker 1: recommitted himself to flying and even participated in aerospace engineering
Speaker 1: in hopes of helping to create a reusable spacecraft. In
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty eight, the famed pilot and cosmonaut took off
Speaker 1: on a routine training flight. Shortly thereafter, the plane crashed
Speaker 1: near town just outside Moscow. Both Gagaran and the flight
Speaker 1: instructor perished. Gagarin was just thirty two years old. Immediately,
Speaker 1: the Soviets rushed to gloss over the incident, covering up
Speaker 1: details for decades lacking convincing explanations, conspiracy theories abounded, but
Speaker 1: none of them stuck in New evidence emerged thanks to
Speaker 1: the investigative work of Alexei Leonov, former cosmonaut who was
Speaker 1: troubled by the death of his friend and fellow space traveler.
Speaker 1: His unconfirmed explanation for the crash an error and air
Speaker 1: traffic control during the fateful flight. A Soviet plane much
Speaker 1: larger than the training flight model could have violated Gagarin's airspace.
Speaker 1: The turbulence could have caused Gagaran to lose control and
Speaker 1: ultimately plunged to his death, And perhaps the embarrassment of
Speaker 1: losing a national icon to such a simple error was
Speaker 1: too much to admit publicly, Or maybe, as Leonov speculated,
Speaker 1: the authorities didn't want to make public that there was
Speaker 1: a lapse so close to Moscow. We may never know
Speaker 1: for sure. What we do know is that Ggarans first
Speaker 1: and only space mission left an indelible mark on our world.
Speaker 1: But we also spoke via email with Amy Foster, assistant
Speaker 1: history professor at the University of Central Florida. She said
Speaker 1: people had been dreaming of flying in the air from
Speaker 1: millennia before the right Brothers achieved that in nineteen o three,
Speaker 1: the idea of humans flying in space was even more lofty.
Speaker 1: While both the United States and the Soviet Union had
Speaker 1: successfully launched living creatures by the time of Gagarans flight,
Speaker 1: there were still questions about how the mission would affect
Speaker 1: a human so Ggarans flight made flying in space not
Speaker 1: only achievable, but also a realistic endeavor. Today's episode was
Speaker 1: written by Nathan Chandler and produced by Tyler Clang. For
Speaker 1: more on this and lots of other far flung topics,
Speaker 1: visit housemufworks dot com. Brain Stuff is production of iHeart Radio.
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