Biography
Yuri Gagarin is a Soviet pilot, whose biography everyone knows from school. Gagarin - a man who has committed the first flight into space. The cosmonaut pilot became a sample and legend not only for residents of the USSR, he is an honorary citizen of foreign cities and an international public figure. Yuri Alekseevich opened a new page in the study of space and became a symbol of the development of Soviet science and aviation.Childhood
Yuri Alekseevich Gagarin was born on March 9, 1934 in the village of Closhino, in the Western Oblast of the USSR, in the family of wealthy peasants. The boy was the third of the four children. The childhood of Yura passed calmly and joyfully, the father and mother paid a lot of attention. Alexey Ivanovich, Head of the Family, was engaged in a lot of trees from a tree and gladly acquired to this children.
At 6 years, Yura went to school, but managed to finish only the first class before the Great Patriotic War began. The German troops seized part of the territory of the USSR, they reached Closhino, so the work of many government agencies, including schools, stopped. Becoming a famous person, Yuri preferred never to remember the gloomy times of occupation. It is known that the soldiers of Germany kicked out the Gagarian family from the house and, retreating, took with them the youth as prisoners of war. So drove his brother and sister.
In 1943, Closhino was liberated, and soon after the end of the war, Gagarins moved to Gzhatsk, where the boy continued his studies. Yuri was very capable and inquisitive young men, engaged in many types of activities, ranging from music and ending with a photo.
After Gagarin finished 6 grades, he decided to move to Moscow, as he felt too shy in a small town. Parents tried to dissuade the ambitious young man, but could not do that. So, in 1949, 15-year-old Yuri Gagarin moved to the capital.
The teenager lived in relatives, studied in a craft school, while at the same time passing the program for the seventh class at the school of working youth. At the same time, young Gagarin was carried away by basketball and soon became the captain of the team. In 1951, the young man moved to Saratov, where he began to be trained in the industrial technical school. During his studies, Yuri's first acquaintance occurred.
In 1954, Gagarin got to the aircraft club, which read the reports of the founding fathers of cosmonautics. After listening to the calculations of Tsiolkovsky, the young man just fell in love with the idea of flying outside the land, although he could hardly imagine then than his passion would turn out. Next year, Gagarin released from the technical school, parallel to the young man continued to consist in the club of airbags and has already managed to independently perform several flights on a small training aircraft.
A few months after the future cosmonaut graduated from studying, he was called for the passage of the army service to the Military Aviation School in Chkalov. There, Gagarin had a serious conflict, barely not worth the young man of life. Gagarin, appointed by the assistant of the platoon commander, was extremely strict in terms of discipline, which, of course, did not suit his fellow students. One night, it was climble and brutally beaten, after which the young man lay in the hospital a month before he could return to the service. It is noteworthy that this incident was not at all broken the martial spirit, he did not change the attitude towards the ward.
Cadet Gagarin easily coped with any tasks, except for planting an aircraft. The device was constantly slandering the nose, and due to the fact that the requirements for the student were extremely strict, it was decided to deduct Gagarin.
A young man who did not imagine his life without the sky was preparing to put a cross on his career, but at that moment the head of the school, who did not give rest of the mysterious failures of the best student, drew attention to the small growth of the guy and suggested that it was because of this he It has problems with an angle view during landing. Gagarina was given another chance, while the lining was put on the flight, an increase in the height of the seating. The assumption turned out to be true.
In 1957, Yuri Gagarin graduated from the school and began to serve in the Murmansk region.
Cosmonautics
In 1959, Gagarin surrendered to the rank of senior lieutenant, having received the title of the 1st class military pilot. At the same time, at the state level, a decree on the search and selection of candidates for the flight beyond the limits of land was enshrined. Hearing this, the pilot wrote a report to the leadership, in which he asked to enroll him into candidates.
The selection took place not by skills or merit, supervised Korolev and first of all looked at the physical data of the applicants. The first rockets were limited in sizes and lifting capacity. Growth, almost worth the career pilot, this time became a happy ticket of Yuri. The young man's growth was 165 cm (according to some data at all 157), and the weight of the future cosmonaut was 68 kg - be Gagarin larger, he could not fit in a spacecraft.
After numerous inspections, Gagarin was approved as one of the 20 prospective future cosmonauts. In March 1960, the pilot began training.
Despite tough competition, Gagarin managed to conquer the sympathy of even his rivals. Reliable, strong and friendly young man did not envy anyone, did not consider anyone better or worse, and it was visible on his behavior and a speech manner. Cosmonaut easily took the initiative, worked hard and with pleasure.
Gagarin adored the sky and gave himself entirely, he simply did not have time for his rest. As a result, on an anonymous question, conducted among candidates for astronauts, most of them called Gagarin as a person most suitable for the first flight to space. Despite the fact that the pilot was not the leader in any field of training, on the combination of skills, the character traits and psychological sustainability, it was he who was recognized perfectly adapted for traveling into space.
Choosing a candidate
In 1961, in view of rivalry with the United States, it became necessary to finally decide on candidates and flight the maximum at the beginning of the second decade of April. Then the information appeared that on April 20, the American rocket was launched with a man on board. Among the three leaders offered as the first cosmonaut chose Gagarin, it happened at the very last moment, less than a month before the flight. Hermann Titova was approved by the spare.
The question is why Gagarin became the first person in space, and not Titov, worries lovers of history to this day. In the records, the queen appears the mark that the titons are more prepared than Gagarin, but at a decisive moment was still chosen by the second. One theory says that a political factor intervened in the choice. The first astronaut had to become a symbol: Yuri, who possessed the exemplary-Slavic appearance and the pure biography of the whole family, seemed to the authorities more appropriate to the role of a representative of Soviet cosmonautics.
Another theory claims that Titov was more important for the project, so they did not want to risk in the first flight. Already at that time, he was approved for the second. In parallel, work was carried out on a long stay in space. Hermann Titov seemed to the queen suitable for carrying out the whole day.
Another theory says that Gagarin chose in person personally. The media argue that Yuri became the favorite of the authorities after the only one of the preparatory group responded to the offer to sit in the Satellite ship "East" when the ship was first demonstrated by the ship.
According to the mother of the cosmonaut, Yuri passed a certain unofficial exam aroused by the Queen.
The designer could not choose from five similar pilots one. Men had almost identical growth and weight, military rank. All, except Captain Komarov, served as older lieutenants. Korolev spent personal conversations with candidates, asking a tricky issue of the centrifuge. Gagarin honestly stated that he feels bad in this test and even hates the centrifuge. The remaining candidates have been reported that the preparation is perfect. So Yuri was a test for honesty. For the queen and command of the base, it was paramount to the cosmonaut to frankly tell about all the problems and mistakes in flight, and did not improvise and kept her face.
Journalists and researchers also admit that the question itself is, why Gagarin became the first person in space, incorrect, since Yuri was not. In 1993, M. Rudenko and N. Varvarov published the names of three pilots in the "Air Transport" newspaper. According to journalists, in 1957, the pilot of ice, in 1958 - Shaborin, and in 1959, died during the subborital flight. Experiments remained classified, and in 1960, the selection of pilots in the training program was passed. An article in a specialized common newspaper did not challenge any employee of the space industry.
First flight to space
Flying on the ship "Vostok" was associated with huge risks for the life of Gagarin. Due to the rush, some important systems were not duplicated, the ship was not equipped with a soft planting system, an emergency rescue system was not created in case of troubleshooting during the start. The chance that the first cosmonaut will die and not climbing into the air was very large.On April 12, 1961, took off from the Baikonur cosmodrome. Due to the fact that there were malfunctions with equipment, Gagarin rose 100 kilometers higher than originally planned. If there were problems with the brake installation, the astronaut would have to return to Earth more than a month, while the stock of water and food was designed for only 10 days.
Despite numerous problems, Yuri Gagarin safely descended from the atmosphere. His apparatus landed not where it was planned. Cosmonauts were brought to the nearest village, and from there Yuriy called the authorities with a report on the successful landing and absence of injuries. Since the flight was secret, even the Soviet media learned about the technological breakthrough of the native state only the next day.
World Glory
As soon as the information has become available, Gagarin has become a worldwide star. This was a lot of Khrushchev, insisted on a decent hero. On April 14, 1961, a grand festival was held in honor of the cosmonaut.
A month later, Gagarin was sent abroad with the Mission of the World, where he had to visit more than 20 countries, working, including in the diplomatic vein. In all these trips, Gagarin has proven itself as a tactful and charming young man. Personal charisma Yuri a lot contributed to strengthening the positive image of the USSR.
The next few years Yuri Gagarin was mainly engaged in public activities, almost not engaged in the flight service. The famous cosmonaut made a lot of effort to popularize astronautics, he was preparing to become a member of the lunar cosmic crew. Also, Major Gagarin entered the aircraft engineering academy, which was completed a month before the death.
Personal life
In 1957, Yuri Gagarin married Valentina Goryacheva, a medical department employee at the Flight Management Center.
In this marriage, the spouses had two daughters: Lena - in 1959, and Galina appeared a month before the legendary Father's flight in March 1961. Yuri always found time for children. Cosmonaut and his daughters adored animals, so ducks, chickens, proteins and lan lived in the house of Gagarines. The pilot's wife resisted the hobby of the zoo, but later resigned.
After the death of the spouse, Valentina Goryacheva married no longer came out.
Already after the death of the pilot in the Gagarian family, grandchildren appeared: Elena had a daughter of Catherine, and Galina - Son Yuri. The granddaughter of the cosmonaut decided to become an art historian, and grandson - to associate his life with the government.
Death
On March 27, 1968, Gagarin performed the training flight and for unknown reasons made a maneuver from which he could not exit. The plane crashed into the ground, Gagarin and his instructor Vladimir Seregin died. The body of the pilots were cremated, urns with dust are buried in the Kremlin wall.
One of the possible reasons for the tragedy is called rapprochement and sharp evasion from another aircraft, as a result of which MiG-15UTI Gagarin went to the corkscrew. Due to the wrong data on weather conditions and instruments, the pilots simply did not have time to remove the aircraft from the fall. For many years, truth remained unknown.
The lack of a slender official explanation gave rise to assumptions and theory about the cause of the death of the first cosmonaut. Popularity gained conspiracy guesses. It was rumored that Gagarin had a conflict with the leadership, after which the cosmonaut was either "removed", or falsified the death and arrested the pilot, or Gagarin himself played his own death and escaped. Another theory says that Gagarin died during the test of a new rocket, and the training flight was preserved traces of an unsuccessful experiment of the space program.
In 2013, the cosmonaut Alexei Leonov shared the declassified information on the last flight Gagarin with the press. The above version was fully confirmed. Inappropriately, next to the aircraft of Gagarin and Sergey, the SU-15 fighter was, which was driven by MiG-15UTI in the spiral with his stream. The pilots died, did not have time to remove the aircraft from the fall.