Yuri Gagarin

[o ZiploK]

On April 12, 1961, a young test pilot from the Soviet Union named Yuri Gagarin climbed into a space capsule called Vostok 1. 50 years later, Discovery News remembers Gagarin's brave voyage into space, becoming the first human to venture into the next great frontier.

Gagarin's Glitch-Prone Historic Flight

Yuri Gagarin's first space flight was plagued with technical problems and his ship would never have left the ground if it had been subject to today's safety standards, a top rocket scientist said Friday.

"During Gagarin's flight there were around 11 criticisms made and abnormal situations of various levels of complexity," said veteran Soviet rocket scientist Boris Chertok, the Interfax news agency reported.

Problems began when it turned out Gagarin weighed 14 kilograms (30 pounds) too much in his spacesuit, said Chertok, 99, who worked with the ship's brilliant designer, Sergei Korolev, at the design bureau that created the Vostok ship.

To lighten the load, they decided to cut off some of the cables, but accidentally cut connections to pressure and temperature sensors, Chertok said, speaking at a meeting of the state-owned spaceship constructors, Energia.

In a potentially fatal error, the rocket launched Gagarin's ship into marginally the wrong orbit, with the minimum and maximum distances from Earth being a few kilometers out.

The difference meant that if the engines had failed and Gagarin needed to land using atmospheric braking, his ship would have taken not a week to reenter, as calculated, but a month. He only had food for 10 days, Chertok said.

The first manned space flight 50 years ago came after animals died on two flights after being sent into orbit in the Vostok vehicles and after just two successful unmanned launches of the new modified model in March 1961.

"The council of chief designers and the state commission decided it was possible to send the ship into space with a man on board after just two normal unmanned flights," Chertok said.

"If we had thought then about calculating the reliability of the ship according to modern norms, we would never have sent a man up."

Gagarin landed 600 kilometers (370 miles) off target and even as he landed things went wrong -- he had trouble opening the air vent on his helmet and his spare parachute opened unnecessarily.

The fact that Gagarin ejected and landed with a parachute, rather than remaining inside the capsule until touchdown, was kept a secret, Chertok admitted.

"The fact that he returned to Earth in his parachute and not in the landing capsule was a very big state secret for various reasons," he said. "God forbid that anyone mentioned it at a news conference."

i see a connection to ascension is this yuri from the easter egg?

[l-DaNG3R-l]

Wasn't something about that Yuri guy already posted?

anyway I think 1961 is the time for Ascension, maybe he was trying to build machines to get to the moon.

[Lrgx(Slayer)Ragemode]

Yeah i posted something about it in my theories post, maybe some one else did too.

I think there is a connection... Yuri is the evil guy that trapped gersh due to samantha's influence, and with space and all... sending animals into space and the rocket..... I don't know.. my opinion i guess

[DeckchairsFTW]

Personally, i don't think it would be him. Not on the basis of any in-game evidence, but the basic fact that it would be an insult to Russia. Yuri Gagarin is (was) one of their biggest national heroes. He was the man that effectively beat the Americans in a war of propoganda. He was the first man in space for gods sake! To the Russians, it would be like President Lincoln or Winston Churchill being portrayed as an evil murderer.

Just my two cents. Or pennies - More like 1.8p thanks to inflation D:

[flamecommando36]

The 2 Yuris are very different.The in-game Yuri`s surname is kravcheski anyway,they arent the same.