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I was a small child when this history occured: I was a small child when this history occured. Fascinating, detailed book with a scant half-dozen details oddly omitted
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 . not in book: txtile worker and parachutist Valentina Tereshkova Vostok 6, 16 June 1963, 48 orbits almost 3 days
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  . Gagarin, Bykovskiy, Nelyubov, Nikolayev, Popovich, and Titov.   . Gagarin, Bykovskiy, Nelyubov, Nikolayev, Popovich, and Titov.
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        .p038 Gagarin born 1934 in [[ https://www.google.com/maps/place/Klushino,+Smolensk+Oblast,+Russia,+215033/@55.6672643,35.0421,757m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0x46ca39b7f8e14a53:0x45839a4d6efe39e1!8m2!3d55.6689695!4d35.0469661 | Klushino, Smolensk Oblast ]] 190 km west of Moscow, carpenter father Aleksey, literate mother Anna
 .p039 German occupation 1941 October 2, evicted from house, lived in dugout, homeschooled. p040 Younger brother Boris hanged, survived with damage p040 liberated 1943 spring
 .p041 moved to [[ https://www.google.com/maps/dir/Klushino,+Smolensk+Oblast,+Russia,+215033/Gagarin,+Smolensk+Oblast,+Russia,+215010/@55.5965572,34.995869,12z/data=!4m14!4m13!1m5!1m1!1s0x46ca39b7f8e14a53:0x45839a4d6efe39e1!2m2!1d35.0469661!2d55.6689695!1m5!1m1!1s0x46ca4a03ec78b8e7:0x10ff95242af48b1b!2m2!1d34.9964718!2d55.5535448!3e0 | Gzhatsk ]] (now Gagarin) ~20 km south
 .p041 Gagarin studied foundry work at [[ http://en.sstu.ru/ | Saratov technical college ]]
 .p041 [[ https://www.alibris.com/booksearch.detail?invId=16228669806&utm_medium=affiliate&utm_source=oP5Nuw5q6fc&utm_campaign=2&siteID=oP5Nuw5q6fc-aCt4lddOIWR0VcDGkxyRcw | Road to the Stars ]] by "Yuri Gagarin" 2002 english printing
 .p042 Gagarin graduated with top marks in 31/32 subjects, chose jet pilot rather than smelting specialist.
 .p042 Titov: Gagarin 'could talk to anybody ... in every situation he would find the key to people'
 .p046 Johnson: 'control of space means control of the world'.
 .p047 Kennedy: both sides ... explore the stars ... (embedded in a long laundry list of platitudes)
 .p048 MIT's Wiesner advised Kennedy to modify or cancel Mercury, then made science advisor
 .p050 Shame and Danger: reactions to the Sputniks
 .p055 navy Vanguard's TV-3 failure on December 6, 1957
 .p057 von Braun's Juno (modified Jupiter-C) launches Explorer 1 on January 31, 1958 / Cover of Time, Feb 17
 .p058 May 1958 Sputnik 3, 3000 pound orbiting science laboratory
 .p059 US better H-bombs meant smaller rockets, though Saturn was on the drawing board
 .p065 Scott Carpenter, relatively inexperienced pilot but superb physical shape.
 .p067 philandering Gordon Cooper was (secretly) separated, but reconciled to improve his chances
 .p068 Glenn was cheerful and charming
 .p071 KC-135 vomit comet, 30 seconds of weightlessness
 .p072 1960 Nov 21, Mercury Redstone MR-1 lifted 3.8 inches, escape tower launched itself, Mercury parachutes deployed.
    . modification led to [[ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercury-Redstone_1#Causes_of_the_failure | miswired connector separating in wrong order ]].
 .p075 1960 Dec 19, [[ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercury-Redstone_1A | MR-1A ]] mission completely successful
 .p076 1959: Yuri Gagarin and wife Valentina at [[ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luostari/Pechenga_(air_base) | Luostari air base ]]
 .p079 2461 pilots considered, 352 candidates interviewed by doctors,134 tested at Moscow aviation hospital
 .p084 Gherman Titov secretly told wife Tamara (violating rules)
 .p086 First 12 of 20 inducted into Military Unit 26266 in March 1960; younger than US, healthier, inexperienced
 .p090 '''Korolev''' Chief Designer of OKB-1 long range missiles
 .p092 1938 June 27 arrested by Stalin's NKVD, confession extracted, broken jaw, prison, 1938 Kolyma Siberia gold mine
   .1939 to [[ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharashka | sharashka ]] to design ricket engines, released in July 1944
 .p095 1950 2xV-2 R-2, 1953 750 mi range R-5. 1957 R-7 ICBM
 .p097 Korolev left first wive Kseniya and daughter Natalya, married second wife Nina in 1949
 .p101 1960 Russians displayed R-7 upper stage in Mexico City, CIA disassembled and copied it overnight
 .p105 Gagarin removes shoes before stepping into clean Vostok; Korolev visibly impressed
 .p107 1961/01/31 MR02 Subject 65 Ham
 .p108 Psychomotor - Light flashes, ham presses lever or is zapped
 .p113 Gee-Whizz rocket sled at Holloman
 .p117 Alan Shepard on gantry watching Ham's box strapped into Mercury capsule "Spacecraft Number 5" (7 assigned to Shepard)
 .p119 blunt bottom capsule attributed to Maxime Faget (probably Eggers), "more slowly(???) and more coolly"
 .p120 Glenn joked, "You don't climb into a Mercury capsule, you put it on."
 .p120 Soviet throw-weight got them to space first, but delayed technology development
 .p121 Hatch closed with 70 bolts 140 minutes before launch
 .p123 continuous prep for three weeks, blockhouse 750 feet from pad, Mercury Flight Director Chris Kraft "Flight"
 .p129 1154 launch, Thrust controller? stuck, too fast, 4400mph -> 5857mph, Ham heart rate from 94 to 126 beats/min
 .p131 Redstone depletes fuel, shuts down half second early, triggers escape tower, 17gees to 156 mile altitude, heart rate 158 bpm
 .p131 41 miles too high, 130 miles beyond the recovery ships, 3 hours away. 14.7 gees, Ham heart rate 204 bpm
 .p133 splashdown 1212pm, 422 miles out. Capsule let in 800 pounds of water before first helicopter arrived
 .p135 von Braun withholds next Redstone until investigation made
 .p143 von Braun: ''all'' parties involved had to agree they were ready to launch
 .p144 Now we had a timid German fouling our plans from the inside
   . Flight: My Life In Mission Control, Chris Kraft autobiography, own.
 .p144 George Kistiakowsky ... if anything did go wrong ... end up as the most expensive public funeral in history.
 .p148 Feb 22, Glenn, Grissom, and Shepard introduced as first three astronauts by press officer Shorty Powers
 .p153 summer 1960, cosmonaut wives told of husband's missions
 .p156 Parachute training, up to 65 jumps in 5 weeks, ten day isolation test
 .p158 Unmanned test flight end of March as von Braun wanted, then Shepard launch last week in April
   . Webb agreed, reflecting Kennedy's concerns about haste
 .p159 Von Braun calculated 2% chance of failure
 .p161 Ivan Ivanovich mannequin test 1961 March 9 Vostok 3A capsule p169 recovered Tokmak village
 .p166 [[ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shemya | Shemya ]] monitor station in Aleutian archipelago, close to Kamchatka
 .p167 1960 captured 83 MHz video transmission of doc test flights
 .p177 Site 10, Leninsky 10,000 inhabitants, Site 2 MIK (Montazhno-Ispytatelnyi Kompleks) assembly building
 .p179 location secret, address Number 10 Tashkent 50
 .p180 August 28 1957 U2 mission shows R-7 launch pad - May 1960 Francis Gary Powers shootdown
 .p181 October 24 1960 R-16 explosion
 .p185 March 13 1961 Valentin Bondarenko burned, fire in 40% oxygen test chamber. p188 16 hours to die, 1986 revealed in ''Izvestia'' . . public info might have prevented Apollo 1 fire
 .p190 only three spacesuits, leaky emergency dingy, dehumifier , all nominal, 29fail, R-7 third stage fails
 .p193 March 24 1961 MR-BD booster development test, nominal, splashdown within 4 miles of expected target, all booster corrections satisfactory
 .p202 Ivan lands near [[ https://www.google.com/maps/place/Izhevsk,+Udmurt+Republic,+Russia/@56.9409718,53.5212943,10z/data=!4m5!3m4!1s0x43e13920148e2bb1:0xa7e1eb248097e152!8m2!3d56.8618601!4d53.2324284 | Votinsk and Izhevsk ]]
 .p206 [[ http://www.astronautix.com/k/kamanindiaries.html | Kaminin secret diary ]]: survival equipment untested, capsule separation fail, overshot target area 660 km
 .p207 March 30 meeting, Konstantin Rudnev meeting in Moscow, approves human flight next, three press releases prepared
 .p212 1961 April 3, presidium authorizes Vostok-3A comonaut mission
 .p215 1961 April 4, Kennedy approves Bay of Pigs invasion
 .p218 Chkalovsky: 6 vanguard cosmonauts leave for launch site, Tamara knows, Valentina learns about upcoming launch
 .p227 backup manual control system, locked with three digit code p232 April 7 belated manual descent training
 .p245 Fake press release - Baikonur 280 km NW, fake wooden launch pad, also claimed cosmonaut lands in vehicle
 .p248 April 9 Titov chosen for second more challenging mission, Gagarin's personality chosen for first
 .p253 R-9 second stage malfunction
 .p257 April 10 Oleg Ivanovsky, 14 kg Vostok mass reduction by hacking out surplus electronics and systems
 .p267 Pad abort - eject, 12 story drop into a net, crawl into bathtub, lowered down by rescue team
  . Gherman Titov laughed to tears "It's good that we did not know this"
 .p283 April 12 Technician painted CCCP on Gagarin's white helmet
 .p284 if Soviet spaceflight announcement, Kennedy said "Give me the news in the morning"
 .p286 bus ride to pad, no mention of peeing on tire
 .p291 Gagarin's code name Kedr (Cedar). 30 bolts on hatch. Launch bunker deep underground, 100 meters away
 .p294 Ground and tracking ship radars feed Bolshevo missile computation center NII-4
 .p299 R-7 suspended on 4 arms over flame pit ... 353 second thIrd stage engine burn
 .p301 April 12 09:06 ignition, 32 combustion chambers (20 nozzles), all must simultaneously ignite or possible explosiom
 .p302 Gagarin heartrate from 64 to 157 bpm, Poyekhali! (Let's Go!)
 .p304 667 seconds to orbit
 .p306 119 sec: Staging feeling "like that of being ripped away from the rocket" 154s nose shroud jettison
 .p309 09:18 3rd stage shutdown
 .p312 NII_4 calculated 327 km apogee, planned 230 km. Wrong landing spot, too slow orbit decay if braking engine failed.
 .p314 Yuri's parents Aleksey and Anna in Gzhatsk
 .p318 1:35am EST elint to Pierre Salinger
 .p321 09:57 last call to Khabarovsk
 .p323 Gagarin promoted to Major 10:00 Radio announcer [[ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8VnFxR3dQJY | Yuri Levitan ]]
 .p326 Tamara Titova tells neigbor Valentina Gagarina
 .p328 Yuri's mother Anna Gagarina in Gzhatsk informed by daughter Zoya, takes train to Moscow
 .p328 Father informed "Aleksey Ivanovich! ... son in space ... pilot major Gagarin" "Not my son ... a first lieutenant"
 .p329 roads impassable, Aleksey heads back home on horse
 .p329 2am EST NYTimes calls Salinger
 .p330 NBC reporter calls press officer 'Shorty' Powers, "... NASA's reaction to the Russians orbiting a cosmonaut?" "Fuck you, we're asleep here"
 .p330 morning headlines SOVIETS PUT MAN IN SPACE, SPOKESMAN SAYS U.S. ASLEEP
 .p338 Entry burn cuts off too soon, separation delayed 12 minutes until entry heat
 .p339 ablative resin-impregnated asbestos surrounding sphere, 11 to 4 cm thick > 10 gees
 .p342 10:42 40km south of Saratov, lost survival pack, 6min problem opening breathing tube
 .p345 10:53 landed in freshly plowed field
 .p363 Krushchev calls for monumental Moscow celebration April 14
 .p366 8am Kennedy wakes to newspaper headlines, later stumbles through press conference
 .p372 Teenagers scavenge liferaft, pierce orange capsule, boom!, whole farmyard covered with yellow dye
 .p396 Something more was needed. NASA deputy Hugh Dryden said Apollo might cost $40B ($345B 2021)
 .p397 April 19, Bay of Pigs was disaster. Kennedy explores Apollo, maybe $20B (actually $28B between 1960 and 1973)
 .p400 Alan Shepard suborbital flight
 .p403 1961 May 25 Kennedy Moom Speech to Congress
 .p409 1966 January 14 age 59 Korolev dies in Moscow hospital. Identity revealed, state funeral January 18, ahes interred in Kremlin wall.
 .p410 1961 August 6, Titov 17 orbits in 25 hours
 .p413 Gagarin world tour, 1961 July Buckingham palace, 1963 addresses United Nations
 .p414 1968 March 27 Gagarin dies in MIG-15 crash near Moscow, unproven rumors of foul play, state funeral March 30
-----
 .Daughters [[ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yelena_Gagarina | Yelena ]] (1959/04/17) and Galina (1961/03/07) still alive
 .Brother Boris' daughter Anna immigrated to US in 2002 and married
 . not in book: textile worker and parachutist Valentina Tereshkova Vostok 6, 16 June 1963, 48 orbits almost 3 days

Beyond

2021 Stephen Walker BvLib 629.45 WAL

I was a small child when this history occured. Fascinating, detailed book with a scant half-dozen details oddly omitted

1957 October 4

Sputnik

and later on

1958 January 31

Explorer 1

1965 March 23

Gemini 3, Grissom & Young

this history

1965 December 15

Gemini 6 & 7 Rendezvous

1961 January 20

Kennedy inauguration

1966 November 11

Gemini 12, Lovell & Aldrin

1961 April 12

Yuri Gagarin - Vostok 1

1967 November 9

Apollo 4 first "all up" unmanned

1961 April 17

Bay of Pigs invasion

1968 October 11

Apollo 7 first crew

1961 May 5

Mercury Alan Shepard

1968 December 21

Apollo 8 to lunar orbit

1961 May 25

Kennedy moon speech

1969 July 16

Apollo 11 to lunar landing

1961 October 27

Saturn Apollo 1 rocket test

1971 April 19

Salyut 1 space station

1962 Feb 20

John Glenn - Mercury

1973 May 14

Skylab space station

1964 April 8

Gemini 1, no crew

1964 October 12

Voskhod 1, 3 cosmonauts     no room for space suits

  • p003 1955, railway from Moscow to Tashkent, small stop at Tyuratam
  • p017 1958 end, project Mercury begun
  • p021 1959 April 9 Mercury astronaut first press conference
  • p016 1960 October 24 R-16 rocket explosion killed 74 including strategic missile chief Mitrofan Nedelin
  • p009 1960 December 24 . . . recovery of 2m diameter 2500 kg capsule with two dogs, 5th flight, barely survived
    • most dog fights failed, 1960 August third flight Belka and Strelka survived
  • p016 two further dog tests
  • p021 1961 Mercury astronauts in Langley building 60, Glenn and Shepard front runners
  • p024 Glenn(1929) 57 WW2 missions, 59 Korea missions, 3 kills, 5 DFCs 1957 fastest cross country, Name That Tune

  • p024 Shepard(1923) Navy test pilot, no combat, looped Chesapeake Bay bridge ~1952
  • p026 Carpenter(1925) hobby playing guitar
  • p004 1961 6000 km2 ellipse Baikonur Cosmodrome ready for Vostok 1
  • p004 R-7 rocket type 8K27K 28.4 meters tall 280 tonnes, 3 (RDS-37) to 5 MT (RDS-46) warhead (5300 kg?)
    • 3x more powerful than 118 tonne Atlas . . . US Mk 4 RV with 3.75MT W-38 warhead massed 1840 kg
  • p029 Tsentr Podgotovki Kosmonavtov Military Unit 26266, Shchyolkovsky district 41 km NE of Moscow
  • p030 6 cosmonauts, shorter ( < 170cm ) and in 20s, not 30s like Mercury, Vanguard 6

    • Gagarin, Bykovskiy, Nelyubov, Nikolayev, Popovich, and Titov.
  • p030 Vostok simulator in LII Gromov Flight Research Institute in Zhukovsky, 45 km SE of Moscow

  • p031 14 more in training, top secret, relatives unaware, wives knew a little
  • p038 Gagarin born 1934 in Klushino, Smolensk Oblast 190 km west of Moscow, carpenter father Aleksey, literate mother Anna

  • p039 German occupation 1941 October 2, evicted from house, lived in dugout, homeschooled. p040 Younger brother Boris hanged, survived with damage p040 liberated 1943 spring
  • p041 moved to Gzhatsk (now Gagarin) ~20 km south

  • p041 Gagarin studied foundry work at Saratov technical college

  • p041 Road to the Stars by "Yuri Gagarin" 2002 english printing

  • p042 Gagarin graduated with top marks in 31/32 subjects, chose jet pilot rather than smelting specialist.
  • p042 Titov: Gagarin 'could talk to anybody ... in every situation he would find the key to people'
  • p046 Johnson: 'control of space means control of the world'.
  • p047 Kennedy: both sides ... explore the stars ... (embedded in a long laundry list of platitudes)
  • p048 MIT's Wiesner advised Kennedy to modify or cancel Mercury, then made science advisor
  • p050 Shame and Danger: reactions to the Sputniks
  • p055 navy Vanguard's TV-3 failure on December 6, 1957
  • p057 von Braun's Juno (modified Jupiter-C) launches Explorer 1 on January 31, 1958 / Cover of Time, Feb 17
  • p058 May 1958 Sputnik 3, 3000 pound orbiting science laboratory
  • p059 US better H-bombs meant smaller rockets, though Saturn was on the drawing board
  • p065 Scott Carpenter, relatively inexperienced pilot but superb physical shape.
  • p067 philandering Gordon Cooper was (secretly) separated, but reconciled to improve his chances
  • p068 Glenn was cheerful and charming
  • p071 KC-135 vomit comet, 30 seconds of weightlessness
  • p072 1960 Nov 21, Mercury Redstone MR-1 lifted 3.8 inches, escape tower launched itself, Mercury parachutes deployed.
  • p075 1960 Dec 19, MR-1A mission completely successful

  • p076 1959: Yuri Gagarin and wife Valentina at Luostari air base

  • p079 2461 pilots considered, 352 candidates interviewed by doctors,134 tested at Moscow aviation hospital
  • p084 Gherman Titov secretly told wife Tamara (violating rules)
  • p086 First 12 of 20 inducted into Military Unit 26266 in March 1960; younger than US, healthier, inexperienced
  • p090 Korolev Chief Designer of OKB-1 long range missiles

  • p092 1938 June 27 arrested by Stalin's NKVD, confession extracted, broken jaw, prison, 1938 Kolyma Siberia gold mine
    • 1939 to sharashka to design ricket engines, released in July 1944

  • p095 1950 2xV-2 R-2, 1953 750 mi range R-5. 1957 R-7 ICBM
  • p097 Korolev left first wive Kseniya and daughter Natalya, married second wife Nina in 1949
  • p101 1960 Russians displayed R-7 upper stage in Mexico City, CIA disassembled and copied it overnight
  • p105 Gagarin removes shoes before stepping into clean Vostok; Korolev visibly impressed
  • p107 1961/01/31 MR02 Subject 65 Ham
  • p108 Psychomotor - Light flashes, ham presses lever or is zapped
  • p113 Gee-Whizz rocket sled at Holloman
  • p117 Alan Shepard on gantry watching Ham's box strapped into Mercury capsule "Spacecraft Number 5" (7 assigned to Shepard)
  • p119 blunt bottom capsule attributed to Maxime Faget (probably Eggers), "more slowly(???) and more coolly"
  • p120 Glenn joked, "You don't climb into a Mercury capsule, you put it on."
  • p120 Soviet throw-weight got them to space first, but delayed technology development
  • p121 Hatch closed with 70 bolts 140 minutes before launch
  • p123 continuous prep for three weeks, blockhouse 750 feet from pad, Mercury Flight Director Chris Kraft "Flight"
  • p129 1154 launch, Thrust controller? stuck, too fast, 4400mph -> 5857mph, Ham heart rate from 94 to 126 beats/min

  • p131 Redstone depletes fuel, shuts down half second early, triggers escape tower, 17gees to 156 mile altitude, heart rate 158 bpm
  • p131 41 miles too high, 130 miles beyond the recovery ships, 3 hours away. 14.7 gees, Ham heart rate 204 bpm
  • p133 splashdown 1212pm, 422 miles out. Capsule let in 800 pounds of water before first helicopter arrived
  • p135 von Braun withholds next Redstone until investigation made
  • p143 von Braun: all parties involved had to agree they were ready to launch

  • p144 Now we had a timid German fouling our plans from the inside
    • Flight: My Life In Mission Control, Chris Kraft autobiography, own.
  • p144 George Kistiakowsky ... if anything did go wrong ... end up as the most expensive public funeral in history.
  • p148 Feb 22, Glenn, Grissom, and Shepard introduced as first three astronauts by press officer Shorty Powers
  • p153 summer 1960, cosmonaut wives told of husband's missions
  • p156 Parachute training, up to 65 jumps in 5 weeks, ten day isolation test
  • p158 Unmanned test flight end of March as von Braun wanted, then Shepard launch last week in April
    • Webb agreed, reflecting Kennedy's concerns about haste
  • p159 Von Braun calculated 2% chance of failure
  • p161 Ivan Ivanovich mannequin test 1961 March 9 Vostok 3A capsule p169 recovered Tokmak village
  • p166 Shemya monitor station in Aleutian archipelago, close to Kamchatka

  • p167 1960 captured 83 MHz video transmission of doc test flights
  • p177 Site 10, Leninsky 10,000 inhabitants, Site 2 MIK (Montazhno-Ispytatelnyi Kompleks) assembly building
  • p179 location secret, address Number 10 Tashkent 50
  • p180 August 28 1957 U2 mission shows R-7 launch pad - May 1960 Francis Gary Powers shootdown
  • p181 October 24 1960 R-16 explosion
  • p185 March 13 1961 Valentin Bondarenko burned, fire in 40% oxygen test chamber. p188 16 hours to die, 1986 revealed in Izvestia . . public info might have prevented Apollo 1 fire

  • p190 only three spacesuits, leaky emergency dingy, dehumifier , all nominal, 29fail, R-7 third stage fails
  • p193 March 24 1961 MR-BD booster development test, nominal, splashdown within 4 miles of expected target, all booster corrections satisfactory
  • p202 Ivan lands near Votinsk and Izhevsk

  • p206 Kaminin secret diary: survival equipment untested, capsule separation fail, overshot target area 660 km

  • p207 March 30 meeting, Konstantin Rudnev meeting in Moscow, approves human flight next, three press releases prepared
  • p212 1961 April 3, presidium authorizes Vostok-3A comonaut mission
  • p215 1961 April 4, Kennedy approves Bay of Pigs invasion
  • p218 Chkalovsky: 6 vanguard cosmonauts leave for launch site, Tamara knows, Valentina learns about upcoming launch
  • p227 backup manual control system, locked with three digit code p232 April 7 belated manual descent training
  • p245 Fake press release - Baikonur 280 km NW, fake wooden launch pad, also claimed cosmonaut lands in vehicle
  • p248 April 9 Titov chosen for second more challenging mission, Gagarin's personality chosen for first
  • p253 R-9 second stage malfunction
  • p257 April 10 Oleg Ivanovsky, 14 kg Vostok mass reduction by hacking out surplus electronics and systems
  • p267 Pad abort - eject, 12 story drop into a net, crawl into bathtub, lowered down by rescue team
    • Gherman Titov laughed to tears "It's good that we did not know this"
  • p283 April 12 Technician painted CCCP on Gagarin's white helmet
  • p284 if Soviet spaceflight announcement, Kennedy said "Give me the news in the morning"
  • p286 bus ride to pad, no mention of peeing on tire
  • p291 Gagarin's code name Kedr (Cedar). 30 bolts on hatch. Launch bunker deep underground, 100 meters away
  • p294 Ground and tracking ship radars feed Bolshevo missile computation center NII-4
  • p299 R-7 suspended on 4 arms over flame pit ... 353 second thIrd stage engine burn
  • p301 April 12 09:06 ignition, 32 combustion chambers (20 nozzles), all must simultaneously ignite or possible explosiom
  • p302 Gagarin heartrate from 64 to 157 bpm, Poyekhali! (Let's Go!)
  • p304 667 seconds to orbit
  • p306 119 sec: Staging feeling "like that of being ripped away from the rocket" 154s nose shroud jettison
  • p309 09:18 3rd stage shutdown
  • p312 NII_4 calculated 327 km apogee, planned 230 km. Wrong landing spot, too slow orbit decay if braking engine failed.
  • p314 Yuri's parents Aleksey and Anna in Gzhatsk
  • p318 1:35am EST elint to Pierre Salinger
  • p321 09:57 last call to Khabarovsk
  • p323 Gagarin promoted to Major 10:00 Radio announcer Yuri Levitan

  • p326 Tamara Titova tells neigbor Valentina Gagarina
  • p328 Yuri's mother Anna Gagarina in Gzhatsk informed by daughter Zoya, takes train to Moscow
  • p328 Father informed "Aleksey Ivanovich! ... son in space ... pilot major Gagarin" "Not my son ... a first lieutenant"
  • p329 roads impassable, Aleksey heads back home on horse
  • p329 2am EST NYTimes calls Salinger
  • p330 NBC reporter calls press officer 'Shorty' Powers, "... NASA's reaction to the Russians orbiting a cosmonaut?" "Fuck you, we're asleep here"
  • p330 morning headlines SOVIETS PUT MAN IN SPACE, SPOKESMAN SAYS U.S. ASLEEP
  • p338 Entry burn cuts off too soon, separation delayed 12 minutes until entry heat
  • p339 ablative resin-impregnated asbestos surrounding sphere, 11 to 4 cm thick > 10 gees

  • p342 10:42 40km south of Saratov, lost survival pack, 6min problem opening breathing tube
  • p345 10:53 landed in freshly plowed field
  • p363 Krushchev calls for monumental Moscow celebration April 14
  • p366 8am Kennedy wakes to newspaper headlines, later stumbles through press conference
  • p372 Teenagers scavenge liferaft, pierce orange capsule, boom!, whole farmyard covered with yellow dye
  • p396 Something more was needed. NASA deputy Hugh Dryden said Apollo might cost $40B ($345B 2021)
  • p397 April 19, Bay of Pigs was disaster. Kennedy explores Apollo, maybe $20B (actually $28B between 1960 and 1973)
  • p400 Alan Shepard suborbital flight
  • p403 1961 May 25 Kennedy Moom Speech to Congress
  • p409 1966 January 14 age 59 Korolev dies in Moscow hospital. Identity revealed, state funeral January 18, ahes interred in Kremlin wall.
  • p410 1961 August 6, Titov 17 orbits in 25 hours
  • p413 Gagarin world tour, 1961 July Buckingham palace, 1963 addresses United Nations
  • p414 1968 March 27 Gagarin dies in MIG-15 crash near Moscow, unproven rumors of foul play, state funeral March 30


  • Daughters Yelena (1959/04/17) and Galina (1961/03/07) still alive

  • Brother Boris' daughter Anna immigrated to US in 2002 and married
  • not in book: textile worker and parachutist Valentina Tereshkova Vostok 6, 16 June 1963, 48 orbits almost 3 days

Beyond (last edited 2021-06-25 03:38:08 by KeithLofstrom)