Wheel of Topics #28

How could I miss that, merely a few hours ago it was the birthday of Yuri Gagarin. "Who?" some of you may think. He was simply the first man in space.

Although he was a famous man, most of his life was quite ordinary. Third child of four, raise in the family house on a collective farm, survived nazi occupation... Ok, maybe not that ordinary, but he had a relatively common childhood for someone in his situation. He was a good sportsman with interest in ice hockey and basketball. Went to technical high school, learned to pilot small aircraft as a hobby and had a large interest in space and planets. If we take out the Nazi thing, this could have fitted many man today.

His excellent grades, good physical fitness and pilot ability made him a prime choice for the Russian air force. He gained his wing on a MiG-15 in 1957 and became Senior Lieutenant in 1959. He was chosen for the Vostok Program with 19 other pilot in 1960. The goal of this program was to send a man in space and bring him back alive. Nothing much compared to today's space agenda, but something very important in that time. From the results of this program, they would devise a way to go to the moon(they got beaten to it, but it's not what I'm writing about now).

The 12 April 1961, he was sent toward space in the Vostok 1, a small space capsule. The flight lasted 1h 48m, for less than a full orbital flight, but it reached space, making Yuri Gagarin the first man in space. He became a national hero for Russia, but this made the rest of life very complicated. Not willing to risk his life, the government placed him under high protection for many years. After a few years they gave him the authorization to return to the air force as a fighter pilot. He died in 1968, in a crash landing(a MiG-15UTI).

He represented a good image for the russian propaganda in that time, born a commoner, working hard to be more. I wonder, if he was born in a more modern time, would he still become a hero? Heh, we'll never know.

Grim the pirate