That “We choose to go to the moon” speech JFK gave in 1962? That was the public proclamation. Its proposal before congress happened more than a year previous. It was motivated by those damn Soviets beating America into space a month earlier.
--On This Day in History Shit Went Down: April 12, 1961--
The Soviets tried to keep cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin alive, but he still died young. It wasn’t space travel that killed him, even though he lapped Earth in what looked like a coffin-sized Death Star. I’m getting ahead of myself. Yuri was born in 1934, and during the fucking Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union they went right through his village. A German officer said hey I’m taking your house, but I will be generous and give you permission to build a small mud hut in the yard. Also, we burned down the school.
Yuri was seven when the fucking Nazis invaded, and he lived in that mud hut for almost two years. During that time, he sabotaged German tanks. When the Germans fled his homeland, he showed the Red Army where the Germans had buried mines. Later he worked in a steel plant and joined the air cadets. In 1955 he joined the air force flight school and almost flunked out because he was so damn short, he couldn’t see to land the plane. His instructor said hey sit on this pillow and Yuri said thanks that’s way better and he graduated in 1957 as Lieutenant Gagarin.
In 1959 the Soviets launched Luna 3, the first-ever mission to photograph the far side of the moon, and Yuri said that’s fuckin’ cool I wanna be a cosmonaut. His superiors said yeah sure and he was off to space school. They tested the shit out of him both physically and mentally, and the fact that he was only five-foot-two was a bonus because small cosmonauts = less fuel. It wasn’t just command that preferred him, almost all his fellow cosmonaut candidates thought Gagarin the best choice for the mission.
The first manned launch into space happened on April 12, 1961. Gagarin learned he would be the pilot only four days before. The Vostok 1 spacecraft launched at 6:07 a.m. “Off we go!” Yuri exclaimed at liftoff, which became a popular expression in the USSR afterward. It was a short mission: one lap around Earth taking 108 minutes, then landing in Borat-land. Except he didn’t “land,” he ejected from the capsule at 23,000 feet and parachuted. Jesus.
The flight was a triumph and made Gagarin a hero who got all the medals. It was his only space flight. He was on backup for the 1967 Soyuz 1 mission that killed his friend, and the Soviets couldn’t have the first man in space die, so they said no more space for you. Back to flying plane. Is much safer. A year later the MiG-15 he was piloting crashed and Gagarin died.
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IMPORTANT NOTICE! Both volumes of “On This Day in History Sh!t Went Down” are being UNPUBLISHED* in mid-April. Last chance to get them at JamesFell.com/books.
*Republishing rights have been purchased by Bantam. A new version of Volume I comes this October, and a new version of Volume II next year.
That sentence near the end, "Back to flying plane. Is much safer" has to be read in a deep male Russian-accented voice.
Gagarin's vocal criticism of the Soyuz 1 spacecraft was repeated to anyone who would listen; it was not ready for manned spaceflight. The only thing the Soviets did was move Gagarin from the prime spot to a backup spot. Komarov knew full well this was a suicide mission, but he went anyways to save his friend (so the story says but neither are alive to confirm this).
The tough part of that Soyuz 1 mission was that Gagarin accompanied his friend, Komarov, to the rocket launch pad and then also relayed instruction to him from Mission Control when shit went south in the spacecraft upon re-entry.