TIL Yuri Gagarin returned to Earth during his historic first manned spaceflight by ejecting 6 km from the ground and parachuting down by himself.
TIL Yuri Gagarin returned to Earth during his historic first manned spaceflight by ejecting 6 km from the ground and parachuting down by himself.
Every year as the anniversary of the first human spaceflight approaches, I receive calls inquiring about the validity of Yuri Gagarin’s claim as the first human in space. The legitimate questions focus on the fact that Gagarin did not land inside his spacecraft.
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This seems like the most Soviet thing ever.
We don’t have a good reëntry vehicle, so let’s have them eject. We KNOW personal parachutes work. So yeah that cool right Yuri?
We don’t have a good reëntry vehicle, so let’s have them eject. We KNOW personal parachutes work. So yeah that cool right Yuri?
The nonexistent previous reentry vehicle didn't not fail and kill the previous first cosmonaut, so we didn't fix any issues and are now fairly certain that you will be fine 😉👌
I wonder if Yuri decided to parachute himself (because he didn't trust the landing vehicle), and this was made part of the plan retroactively to not embarrass anyone involved.
No, this was always the plan. That's why there are "dead cosmonaut" rumors that predate Gagarin. They used a mannequin multiple times before Gagarin's flight because they wanted absolutely nothing to possibly go wrong with their propaganda boon.
And here he is, Ivan Ivanovich (the Russian equivalent of John Doe):
The Sovs killed a dog or two in space or reentry.
The first space shuttle had ejection seats.
In later flights, the ejection seats were removed because there was only a narrow window in which the seats could save the occupant, and even then, there was a fair chance the ejection would kill the occupant.
After that SOP was to chuck her into a steep dive, pop the door off, and just jump.
Kinda sums up the Soviet space program perfectly. NASA spent millions to make a pen that worked in space, the Soviets just brought a pencil.
That did not happen.
Graphite dust is a bitch in zero G