photo courtesy of NASA

First Among Cosmonauts
| Published April 21, 2014 |

By R. Alan Clanton
Thursday Review editor

Size does matter, and sometimes smaller is better. Such was the case in the earliest days of the space race.

Indeed, the first human in space was chosen because out of his total class of 20 space voyagers-in-training, and out of his elite class of six, he was the shortest. The first two Russian Vostok space capsules were so small—and weight was such a key factor—that the 5-foot-2 Yuri Gagarin beat out others in his class of six original Vostok cosmonauts by several inches. His closest runner-up was Gherman Titov, who was only one inch taller than Gagarin.

In Russia, on April 12 each year, citizens celebrate something called Cosmonautics Day, an annual event recognizing the great achievements of the combined space programs of the Soviet Union and post-communist Russia. Back in 2011, the holiday was officially rechristened as International Day of Human Space Flight, more cumbersome to write or say perhaps, but the commemoration remains the same: recognition of that day in April 1961 when Gagarin became the first human to go into space.

Gagarin’s launch atop that Russian rocket—like the previous Soviet achievement of putting the small Sputnik satellite in Earth orbit—vastly accelerated the great space race between the Russians and the Americans, arguably the most intense technological battle between the Cold War superpowers, and, some historians have argued, a way for those powers to convert military animosity and the looming threat of mutual annihilation into scientific competition.

In those early days of the space race, the United States lagged behind the Soviet program. Sputnik came as a shock to the West, as did Gagarin’s achievement. But the challenge posed sparked a battle of wills which the Americans would eventually win with the 1969 Apollo mission moon landing (and subsequent lunar missions), and the space programs of both powers produced overnight heroes and a whole new vernacular of space science (see The Golden Age of Space Exploration: 30 Years After The Right Stuff; Thursday Review).

Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin was born 80 years ago (March 9, 1934) in Klushino, in the Soviet Union, to a father who was a bricklayer and a mother who worked as a dairy milkmaid, both toiling on a collective farm in a small village. As a teenager, Gagarin worked briefly in a steel mill before narrowing his job preference to tractor engineering and repairs while in technical and vocational school. He excelled at his studies, and according to his biographical data, he showed an early hobbyist interest in aviation. As a volunteer in what is the Russian equivalent of the Civil Air Patrol in the U.S., Gagarin learned to fly, first, small biplanes, and later more advanced airplanes. A quick learner, Gagarin was flying MiGs for the Soviet Air Force in 1955 at the tender age of 21.

His skill made him an ideal candidate for one of the most challenging assignments in those days: reconnaissance and border flights along the Soviet border with Norway, north of Finland, and along the icy, stormy edges of the Barents Sea north of the Arctic Circle, ever-vigilant for the possibility of incoming American nuclear bombers which would surely arrive by way of the Arctic regions. It was lousy, dangerous work producing endless hours of solitude and sensory deprivation—nearly ideal endurance training, as it happened, when the brass in Moscow went looking for candidates to fill the bill in their top-secret space program. Along with 19 others, mostly pilots, Gagarin was selected to be among the first cosmonauts.

Like the early American astronaut program, much stock was placed in not only physical strength and stamina, but also mental capacity and psychological stability. Psychologists and military doctors rated Gagarin as a prime candidate, much in the same way that the “lab coats” and “smock docs” in the U.S. sought to filter out any aviator who might have difficulty with cramped spaces, vertigo, complex batteries of multi-tasking, sensory deprivation or sensory overload, or abject fear. It was understood, almost from the very beginning, that space travel was a risky adventure, subject to the caveat that pilots might die. Certainly most American and Russian aviators—like their pilot counterparts worldwide—accepted the risks of flight. But going into space was riskier still, subject to testing certain laws of physics not yet fully understood, much less mastered, by those bound by gravity.

Gagarin also possessed that same trait which could be vaguely understood, to paraphrase Tom Wolfe’s famous vernacular, as "the right stuff." These attributes included not merely courage, but also rapid problem-solving, high math skills, attention to surroundings, attention to detail, clarity and brevity of communication, but especially a package of gifts among which were seemingly contrary combinations: modesty plus bravery; intellect plus physical prowess. Gagarin was also likeable, and a favorite among his peers. He often broke the tension with humor and jokes. His looks were boyish and affable, handsome and rugged; in a helmet, he looks to be an eerie composite of John Glenn and Neil Armstrong—easy grin, smiling eyes, dimpled cheeks and cleft chin, trademark gap between the two front teeth.

On April 12, 1961, Gagarin became the first man to enter space, and the first to orbit the Earth. The achievement would propel the American program to singular importance, as it was not acceptable to those in the U.S. or among its closest allies that the Soviets might gain an insurmountable dominance in space. Though the early space program was marketed by both powers as peaceful, there was an underpinning of military conflict accompanying every step and every launch; millions worldwide understood that the outcome of the “space race” might very well include an existential conclusion for either Marxist-Leninism or capitalist democracy.

Indeed, as Wolfe wrote with aplomb in his non-fiction work, The Right Stuff, the space race sparked the greatest surge of patriotism since the end of World War II—especially in the United States. American astronauts like Alan Shepherd and John Glenn were perceived as single combat warriors, trained to be launched into the heavens to joust with the likes of Gagarin, or Titov, or others. In the context of the early 1960s, the very fate of the world depended on meeting this challenge.

Gagarin became an overnight sensation in the Soviet Union, and a superstar for the Soviet marketing message worldwide. He travelled to every continent and scores of countries, making public appearances, participating in ribbon-cutting events, joining in radio interviews and making appearances on television.  Among the Soviet-bloc nations, sitting next to him at a formal dinner was the highest honor, and standing next to him on a reviewing platform was the paramount photo op.  At home in Russia, he was awarded the highest honor: Hero of the Soviet Union, the equivalent of the Congressional Medal of Honor in the U.S.

But just as many in the U.S. space program were challenged less by fear and physical demands and more by the intense public scrutiny, Gagarin suffered from the smothering layers of press attention and celebrity. A Beer Call social drinker in the sense that many pilots drank, after his Vostok flight Gagarin soon went from a drink or two each day, to a pattern of heavy alcohol consumption. Friends and associates say this was due in part to the trappings of celebrity—toasts, honors, parties, dinners—but others have said he was simply overwhelmed by the fish-bowl that had become his way of life.

He was also becoming embittered by his handlers in Moscow: a micromanaged schedule, intense scrutiny of his personal life (famously loyal to his wife prior to Vostok, he was rumored to have had affairs in his days as a celebrity), and the Kremlin’s growing concerns for his safety. He was greatly limited in his flights, and he was banned from any duty which might include serious risk. By the time he was promoted to the rank of colonel in 1963, he spent hardly any time in the cockpit or in the air, save for commercial flights for PR work.

After Vladimir Komarov was killed in his Soyuz 1 flight upon a failed re-entry, the military brass and Nikita Khrushchev prohibited Gagarin from future space travel and quashed any further discussion of the matter: Gagarin was far too valuable to the Kremlin for propaganda reasons. He was elevated instead to the position of assistant training director at Star City, essentially serving as liaison between the young cosmonauts and their superiors in the chain of command (Deke Slayton filled a similar role in the U.S. astronaut program).

But despite being grounded from space and facing heavy restrictions designed to minimize risk, Gagarin flew occasional missions in a MiG, sometimes routine training activities, sometimes for public relations purposes. In spite of every precaution to insure that he was kept safe, he was killed in a crash along with pilot Vladimir Seryogin, the result of unexpected bad weather. After his death, Gagarin was given the highest posthumous honor possible in the Soviet Union—his ashes were buried in a prominent location in the Kremlin wall on Red Square in Moscow.

Gagarin was indelibly stamped into the history books as the man who took those first steps into space, and the man who also served as the smiling catalyst for one of the greatest technological and scientific superpower showdowns in history. It is not possible to tell the stories of Americans like Alan Shepherd, John Glenn, Gus Grissom, Jim Lovell, Neil Armstrong or Buzz Aldrin without first telling of Gagarin’s pivotal role.

Ironically, democracy also played an important role in Gagarin’s selection. Out of the total 20 military men chosen for the initial Russian space program, Gagarin was their own fraternal favorite. After working together for many months of rigorous mental and physical training, the 20 cosmonauts were asked to participate in a secret vote—a sort of straw poll to decide who, as a group, they thought most deserved to fly in the first Russian rocket. Gagarin received 17 votes out of 20.

Though for decades the Kremlin would not acknowledge it, that informal election decided the outcome of the decision of who would be first in space.


Related Thursday Review articles:

The Golden Age of Space Exploration: 30 Years After The Right Stuff; R. Alan Clanton; Thursday Review.