Still, his selection as America’s first space traveler was undoubtedly his proudest accomplishment. Navy to handpick Shepard to test its most advanced aircraft.Ĭhosen as one of NASA’s original Mercury Seven astronauts in 1959, Shepard’s thirst for pushing boundaries would ultimately take him to the Moon. His boundless energy had propelled him two grades ahead at school, while an adventurous spirit, keen wit, and a single-minded determination to be the best led the U.S. Shepard was a gruff New Englander and progeny of a wealthy and dedicated military family. “We had ’em by the short hairs,” Shepard would repeat to anyone who would listen, following the news, “and we gave it away.” fell another lap behind in the race to conquer space.
Gagarin’s successful flight meant the U.S. listening posts were already aware of Gagarin’s mission, the tensions of the Cold War meant the announcement that aired April 12 on Radio Moscow still jarred when they heard it. An additional uncrewed flight in March assuaged those worries, but at the cost of pushing Shepard’s flight back to May. He expected to fly in March, but when the chimpanzee Ham narrowly escaped with his life during an unhappy mission in January, it raised eyebrows about the wisdom of such haste to beat the Soviets. Before his eyes, a tiny Russian doll stowed on the spacecraft floated in midair - indicating the onset of weightlessness.īy early 1961, NASA had informed 37-year-old Alan Shepard that he would be the first man in space. His heart rate soared from 66 to 158 beats per minute. Gagarin later recalled “an ever-growing din,” partly muffled by his helmet, as the R-7 climbed higher. “ Poyekhali!” Gagarin cried, which translates to “Let’s go!” Moscow Standard Time (MSK), the rocket - a converted R-7 Semyorka intercontinental ballistic missile - roared to life, climbing toward the heavens. The spaceship was meant to function autonomously, for fear that separation anxiety from Earth might cause the cosmonaut to go mad once in space. Inside the spherical cabin of his Vostok capsule, engineers tightened Gagarin’s harness, armed his ejection seat, and fastened his oxygen hose. At the launch site, unable to share the Russian going-away tradition of three kisses on alternate cheeks, Gagarin and Titov instead clinked their helmets together in brotherly solidarity. They then donned their orange pressure suits and were bused to the Baikonur launchpad on the windswept Central Asian steppe of what is now Kazakhstan. On April 12, 1961, Titov and Gagarin breakfasted on meat puree and toast with blackcurrant jam.
According to fellow cosmonaut Gherman Titov, the backup pilot for the flight, Gagarin was “a lad who made his dream come true, all by himself.” Gagarin represented the ideal communist pinup: a humble farm boy who rose up from rags to reach the stars. But it was also the ordinariness of this fresh-faced 20-something that helped him win selection as the world’s first space traveler, aboard Vostok 1. Gagarin excelled in training, exhibiting a sharp memory, quick reactions, and a keen grasp of mathematics. A love of aviation ultimately drew him to the Soviet air force, where he flew MiG-15 fighters out of Luostari airbase in Murmansk until he was hired for cosmonaut training in March 1960. He learned to read from old military manuals, pestered his father into helping him build miniature gliders, and found work as an apprentice foundryman.
Born March 9, 1934, into peasant stock in the Russian village of Klushino, his formative years were brutalized by World War II. Gagarin’s upbringing betrayed little of the icon he would become.