First Man in Space
At 6:07 GMT, as the words "Poyekhali! (Off we go!)," erupt from a man named Yuri, three press releases sit on a table; two of failure and one of success. Eighty-nine minutes later on April 12, 1961, the Soviet government is thankful to use the press release of success as Yuri Gagarin becomes the first man to complete a successful spaceflight. The Soviet cosmonaut was launched into orbit by a Vostok 8K72K rocket from a secret base near Tyura-Tam. He orbited the Earth once and re-entered the atmosphere, ejecting from the re-entry capsule 7km above the Earth’s surface. When in flight the controls were locked and the ship was flown by a ground crew, because the effects of weightlessness on humans were unknown. Gagarin was giving a sealed envelope with the code to unlock the controls in case communication was lost. The communication was indeed lost several times but the mission still proceeded according to plan. The only flaw in the flight was when the equipment module remained attached to the re-entry module by a bundle of wires as the spacecraft entered the atmosphere. Instead of separating 10 seconds after retrofire the modules stayed attached for 10 minutes causing the craft to spin uncontrollably. Yuri Gagarin landed about 10 min after ejecting from his craft, 26 km south west of Engels in the
Sources:
http://www.astronautix.com/flights/vostok1.htm
http://www.aerospaceguide.net/humansinspace/vostok.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yuri_Gagarin
