The news of the first man's flight into space shook the whole world. Today everyone on the planet knows that the first manned flight into space took place on April 12, 1961, and this astronaut’s name was . This day is known as International Cosmonautics Day.

However, the world's first flight into space was made not by people, but by an animal. It was they who had to experience all the difficulties of space travel so that scientists could make human flight as safe as possible.

From the early fifties to the sixties of the last century, scientists conducted a series of experiments on animals in which they studied the effects of overload, weightlessness and vibration on a living organism. The first testers were not launched into orbit. They flew on rockets along a parabolic trajectory. The most suitable candidates for such tests were dogs. Of all the applicants, the choice fell on mongrels, since they were tougher than purebred candidates.

The first dogs in space

The first test dogs did not reach outer space. On July 22, 1951, stray dogs named Dezik and Gypsy made the first suborbital flight to an altitude of eighty-seven kilometers seven hundred meters. The R-1B rocket was launched from the Kapustin Yar cosmodrome. This mission was successful and after it five more launches took place with different dogs.

Another series of launches took place in 1954-1956. The purpose of these missions was to test spacesuits in conditions of depressurization of the ship. The dog was sent to a height of one hundred and ten kilometers. Most of the animals tolerated the load well, but in subsequent tests, five out of twelve dogs died.

In 1957, animals were launched into orbit for the first time. This was the year of a breakthrough in astronautics. The very first dogs in space had to experience conditions of prolonged weightlessness, temperature changes and overloads during launch. The first cosmonaut was destined to be a dog named Laika. She liked her exemplary behavior and pleasant appearance. The dog made four orbits around the earth and unfortunately died due to a malfunction in the thermoregulation system. However, Laika still had to die, since the launch was designed to only go one way.

Belka and Strelka

The next step was to launch the animals on the lander. The dogs Belka and Strelka, together with several dozen mice and two rats, became the first to make a successful flight in space and return to Earth. August 19, 1960 is actually the date of the first flight into space with a successful outcome for the test animals. This was a big step towards space exploration, because the information collected during the flight became invaluable material for further research.

Other animals

However, besides dogs, other animals have also been sent into space. In particular, monkeys took part in suborbital and orbital flights, as they are the closest in physiology to humans. In the United States, the first monkey was launched into space around 1948. In France, a monkey was sent into space in 1967. In the USSR, monkeys were used for launches into orbit in 1983 and 1996. In the first launches, mortality among monkeys was quite high.

Felicette the cat

In addition, cats were used for space travel. The first suborbital astronaut in France was a cat named Felix. But the first orbital flight was made by a cat named Felicette. This happened on October 18, 1963. It is interesting to note that Felix the cat was initially appointed as the main candidate for this flight, but shortly before the start he ran away and had to look for a replacement. Felicette the cat was launched into space from the Sahara Desert. The rocket rose to a height of two hundred kilometers, after which the capsule with the cat separated and went back behind the Earth by parachute.

On April 12, 1961, the world was shocked by the news that the Soviet Union had made its first flight into space. The first ever Vostok spacecraft with a person on board, piloted by Yuri Aleskeyevich Gagarin, was launched into orbit around the Earth.

This date has forever entered the history of mankind. The first space flight lasted 108 minutes. Nowadays, when multi-month expeditions are carried out on orbiting space stations, it seems very short. But each of these minutes was a discovery of the unknown.

Yuri Gagarin's flight proved that man can live and work in space. This is how a new profession appeared on Earth - astronaut. In this article we will share with you little known facts about the first flight into space.

The mystery of Soviet cosmonautics. Three cosmonauts died before Gagarin

Space veterans say the triumphant Soviet space program, which culminated with Yuri Gagarin's first flight into space, was marred by several tragedies that were kept secret from Russians and the world.

Former Chief Engineer Experimental Design Bureau No. 456 of the city of Khimki, Mikhail Rudenko, said that the first three victims were test pilots who flew into the outer layers of the atmosphere along parabolic trajectories, which means that they flew up and then crashed down without ever circling the Earth.

“All three died during the flights, but their names were not made public.”

- said Rudenko. He reported the names of the dead: Ledovskikh, Shaborin and Mitkov died in 1957, 1958 and 1959. According to Rudenko, the death of the test pilots forced the Soviet leadership to create a special school for training space pioneers. “They decided to pay more serious attention to training and create a special staff of astronauts,” he said.

And this is not to mention the fact that tragedies occurred not only in space, but also on Earth: during one of the training sessions, Valentin Bondarenko, the youngest candidate for cosmonaut, died right in the isolation chamber (an experimental chamber with low gravity). Irina Ponomareva, a space expert at the Institute of Biology and Medicine, who has been involved in work on the space program since 1959, says: “We tried to create the conditions that the astronaut would encounter in orbit, but a fire broke out in the chamber, it was impossible to save Bondarenko. That's the only thing I remember."

First flights into space. Running animals

It must be said that Belka and Strelka and Yuri Gagarin are far from the first living beings to conquer the territory of weightlessness. Before that, the dog Laika visited there, whose flight was prepared for 10 years and ended sadly - she died. Turtles, mice, and monkeys have also flown into space. The most striking flights, and there were only three of them, were made by a dog named Zhulka. Twice she launched on high-altitude rockets, the third time on a ship, which turned out to be not so perfect and suffered technical failures. The ship could not reach orbit, and a decision was considered to destroy it. But again problems occur in the system, and the ship ahead of schedule returns home falling. The satellite was discovered in Siberia. No one hoped for a successful outcome of the search, not to mention the dog. But after surviving a terrible accident, hunger and thirst, Zhulka was saved and lived for another 14 years after the fall.

On September 23, 1959, a rocket exploded right at the start, with the dogs Krasavka and Damka on board. On December 1, the launch was more successful: the dogs Pchelka and Mushka safely survived the launch, but due to the fact that the descent trajectory at the end of the flight turned out to be too steep, the ship burned down along with the animals in it

Usually mongrels were sent into space because purebred dogs are too nervous

says Vladimir Gubarev, a science journalist who has covered 50 space missions.

Three messages about the first flight into space

Shortly before the flight into space, three pre-launch addresses of the “first cosmonaut to the Soviet people” were recorded. The first was recorded by Yuri Gagarin, and two more by his understudies German Titov and Grigory Nelyubov. Interestingly, three texts of the TASS message about the first manned space flight were also prepared:
- in case of a successful flight
- in case a cosmonaut goes missing and it is necessary to organize a search for him
- in case of disaster.
All three messages were sealed in special envelopes numbered 1, 2, 3 and sent to radio, television and TASS.
The media received clear instructions on April 12, 1961 to open only the envelope whose number was indicated by the Kremlin, and to immediately destroy the remaining messages.

Poems on the first flight into space

Yuri Gagarin admitted in one of his many interviews that during his flight into space he recalled the poems of his favorite poet Sergei Yesenin. During a meeting with cultural figures, which took place a week after world's first space flight, Gagarin left the following note on a book with poems by his beloved poet:

“I love Sergei Yesenin’s poems and respect him as a person who loves Mother Russia”

This unique book is in the center of the exhibition “O Rus', flap your wings!..” at the Moscow State Museum of S.A. Yesenin.

Audio recording, transcript of the first flight

Conversation between Gagarin and Korolev during the first flight into space. The transcript is shortened.

For each anniversary of Yuri Gagarin’s historic flight, “exposing” articles appear again and again in newspapers and the Internet, claiming that Gagarin was not the first cosmonaut. Usually they come down to a list of rumors about pilots who allegedly flew into space before Gagarin, but died there, which is why their names are classified. Where did the myth about the victims of Soviet cosmonautics come from?

Venusian phantom

For the first time, the Soviet Union was accused of keeping silent about the deaths of cosmonauts even before Gagarin’s flight. In the diary of the then head of the cosmonaut corps, Nikolai Kamanin, there is an entry dated February 12, 1961:

After the launch of a rocket to Venus on February 4, many in the West believe that we failed to launch a man into space; the Italians even allegedly “heard” groans and intermittent Russian speech. All of this is completely baseless fiction. In fact, we are working hard to guarantee the astronaut's landing. From my point of view, we are even overly cautious in this. There will never be a complete guarantee of a successful first flight into space, and some of the risk is justified by the greatness of the task...

The launch on February 4, 1961 was indeed unsuccessful, but there was no person on board. This was the first attempt to send a research apparatus to Venus. The Molniya launch vehicle launched it into space, but due to a malfunction, the device remained in low-Earth orbit. The Soviet government, according to established tradition, did not officially acknowledge the failure, and in a TASS message to the whole world it was announced successful launch heavy satellite and fulfillment of the scientific and technical tasks assigned at the same time.

In general, it was the unjustified in many cases veil of secrecy surrounding the domestic space program that gave rise to a lot of rumors and speculation - and not only among Western journalists, but also among Soviet citizens.

Birth of a myth

However, let's return to Western journalists. The first message dedicated to the “victims of red space” was published by the Italians: in December 1959, the Continental agency disseminated a statement by a certain high-ranking Czech communist that the USSR had been launching manned ballistic missiles since 1957. One of the pilots, named Alexey Ledovsky, allegedly died on November 1, 1957 during such a suborbital launch. Developing the topic, journalists mentioned three more “dead cosmonauts”: Sergei Shiborin (allegedly died on February 1, 1958), Andrei Mitkov (allegedly died on January 1, 1959) and Maria Gromova (allegedly died on June 1, 1959). At the same time, the female pilot allegedly crashed not in a rocket, but while testing a prototype of an orbital aircraft with a rocket engine.

During the same period, rocket pioneer Hermann Oberth said that he had heard about a manned suborbital launch that allegedly took place at the Kapustin Yar test site in early 1958 and ended in the death of the pilot. However, Obert emphasized that he knew about the “cosmic catastrophe” from hearsay and could not vouch for the veracity of the information.

And the Continental agency produced sensation after sensation. Italian correspondents talked either about the “lunar ship” that exploded on the launch pad of the mythical Siberian cosmodrome “Sputnikgrad”, or about the upcoming secret flight of two Soviet pilots... Since none of the sensations was confirmed, they stopped trusting Continental’s reports. But the “rumor factory” soon gained followers.

In October 1959, the Ogonyok magazine published an article about aircraft testers. Among them were mentioned Alexey Belokonev, Ivan Kachur, Alexey Grachev. The newspaper "Evening Moscow" in a note on a similar topic spoke about Gennady Mikhailov and Gennady Zavodovsky. For some reason, a journalist from the Associated Press, which republished the materials, decided that the photographs in these articles depicted future Soviet cosmonauts. Since their names subsequently did not appear in TASS space reports, the “logical” conclusion was drawn: these five died during early unsuccessful launches.

The real Belokonov, Grachev and Kachur in photographs from Ogonyok (Photo: Dmitry Baltermants)

Moreover, the wild imagination of the journalists ran wild so much that for each of the pilots they came up with a separate detailed version death. Thus, after the launch of the first satellite 1KP, the Vostok prototype, on May 15, 1960, Western media claimed that the pilot Zavodovsky was on board. He allegedly died due to a malfunction in the orientation system, which put the ship into a higher orbit.

The mythical cosmonaut Kachur found his death on September 27, 1960 during the unsuccessful launch of another satellite, the orbital flight of which was supposed to take place during Nikita Khrushchev’s visit to New York. According to rumors, the Soviet leader had with him a model of a manned spaceship, which he was supposed to triumphantly show to Western journalists if the flight had been successful.

It must be admitted that the Soviet diplomatic services themselves created an unhealthy atmosphere of anticipation for some high-profile event, hinting to American journalists that “something amazing” would happen on September 27. Intelligence reported that spacecraft tracking ships had taken positions in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. A Soviet sailor who escaped during the same period confirmed that a space launch was being prepared. But, after knocking his fist at the UN General Assembly, on October 13, 1960, Nikita Khrushchev left America. There have been no official statements from TASS. Of course, journalists immediately trumpeted to the whole world about a new disaster that befell the Soviet space program.

Many years later it became known that a launch was actually planned for those days. But it was not a person who was supposed to fly into space, but 1M - the first apparatus for studying Mars. However, attempts to send two identical devices into at least low-Earth orbit, undertaken on October 10 and 14, ended ingloriously: in both cases, the launch was disrupted due to the failure of the Molniya launch vehicle.

The next “victim of the space race,” pilot Grachev, died, according to Western media, on September 15, 1961. About him terrible death told by the same rumor factory “Continental”. In February 1962, the agency said that in September 1961, two Soviet cosmonauts were launched on the Vostok-3 spacecraft: supposedly this launch was timed to coincide with the XXII Congress of the CPSU and during the flight the ship was supposed to fly around the Moon, but instead “ lost in the depths of the Universe."

Cosmonaut Ilyushin?

Vladimir Sergeevich Ilyushin, the son of a famous aircraft designer, is another victim of sensation hunters. In 1960, he had an accident and was declared another “Dogagarin cosmonaut.” Proponents of the conspiracy theory believe that Ilyushin was forbidden to talk about his flight into space until the end of his life, because he allegedly... landed on Chinese territory. It is impossible to think of a more ridiculous reason to abandon space primacy. Moreover, Ilyushin not only did not die - he lived until 2010 and rose to the rank of major general.

Voices in space

The grave of tester Zavodovsky. As can be seen from the dates, the “deceased cosmonaut” died in the 21st century in retirement

The failed launch of the Venusian station on February 4, 1961 gave rise to a new wave of rumors. Then the radio amateur brothers Achille and Giovanni Iudica-Cordiglia first made their presence known and built their own radio station near Turin. They claimed to have intercepted telemetry radio signals of a human heartbeat and the ragged breathing of a dying Soviet cosmonaut. This “incident” is associated with the name of the mythical cosmonaut Mikhailov, who allegedly died in orbit.

But that's not all! In 1965, brother radio amateurs told an Italian newspaper about three strange broadcasts from space. The first interception allegedly took place on November 28, 1960: radio amateurs heard the sounds of Morse code and a request for help on English language. On May 16, 1961, they managed to catch the confused speech of a Russian female cosmonaut on air. The third radio intercept, on May 15, 1962, recorded conversations between three Russian pilots (two men and a woman) dying in space. In the recording, through the crackling noise, the following phrases could be discerned: “Conditions are getting worse... why aren’t you responding?.. the speed is falling... the world will never know about us...”

Impressive, isn't it? In order to finally assure the reader of the authenticity of the “facts” presented, the Italian newspaper names the names of the victims. The first “victim” on this list was pilot Alexey Grachev. The female cosmonaut's name was Lyudmila. Among the trio who died in 1962, for some reason only one is named - Alexei Belokonev, about whom Ogonyok wrote.

In the same year, the “sensational” information from the Italian newspaper was republished by the American magazine Reader’s Digest. Four years later, the book Autopsy of an Astronaut, written by pathologist Sam Stonebreaker, was published. In it, the author claimed that he flew into space on Gemini 12 to obtain tissue samples from dead Soviet pilots resting in the ship in orbit since May 1962.

That's who really flew into space before Gagarin - the dummy Ivan Ivanovich. To prevent him from being mistaken for the corpse of an astronaut, a “Model” sign was inserted into the helmet.

As for the article in Ogonyok, which gave rise not even to a myth, but to an entire mythology, the famous journalist Yaroslav Golovanov, who investigated the stories of the “Dogagarin cosmonauts,” interviewed Alexei Timofeevich Belokonov himself (that’s right, and not Belokonev, as is customary among myth-makers ). This is what the tester, who was buried by Western rumor factories a long time ago, said.

In the 50s, long before Gagarin’s flight, my comrades and I, then very young guys - Lyosha Grachev, Gennady Zavodovsky, Gennady Mikhailov, Vanya Kachur, were engaged in ground testing of aviation equipment and anti-g flight suits. By the way, at the same time, spacesuits for dogs that flew on high-altitude rockets were created and tested in a nearby laboratory. The work was difficult, but very interesting.

One day a correspondent from the magazine “Ogonyok” came to us, walked around the laboratories, talked with us, and then published a report “On the threshold of great heights” with photographs (see “Ogonyok” No. 42, 1959 - Ya. G.). The main character of this report was Lyosha Grachev, but they also told about me how I experienced the effects of explosive decompression. Ivan Kachur was also mentioned. They also talked about the altitude record of Vladimir Ilyushin, who then rose to 28,852 meters. The journalist slightly distorted my last name and called me not Belokonov, but Belokonev.

Well, that's where it all started. The New York Journal-American published a fake that my comrades and I flew into space before Gagarin and died. The editor-in-chief of Izvestia, Alexey Ivanovich Adzhubey, invited Mikhailov and me to the editorial office. We arrived, talked with journalists, and took pictures of us. This photograph was published in Izvestia (May 27, 1963 - Ya. G.) next to Adzhubey’s open letter to Mr. Hirst Jr., the owner of the magazine that sent us into space and buried us.

We ourselves published a response to the Americans to their article in the newspaper “Krasnaya Zvezda” (May 29, 1963 - Ya. G.), in which we honestly wrote: “We did not have the chance to rise into extra-atmospheric space. We are testing various equipment for high-altitude flights.” No one died during these tests. Gennady Zavodovsky lived in Moscow, worked as a driver, did not get into Izvestia at that time - he was on a flight, Lyosha Grachev worked in Ryazan at the factory of computing and analytical machines, Ivan Kachur lived in the town of Pechenezhin in the Ivano-Frankovsk region, worked as a teacher in orphanage. Later, I participated in tests related to life support systems for astronauts, and even after Gagarin’s flight I was awarded the medal “For Labor Valor” for this work...

Forgotten heroes

So, the list of mythical astronauts still included people who worked for the space program, but their real lives were noticeably different from journalistic fantasies.

In addition to the four testing friends, a very real figure was, for example, Pyotr Dolgov. Western media declared him an astronaut who died during the orbital satellite disaster on October 10, 1960 (in fact, on that day they tried to launch the 1M No. 1 apparatus). Colonel Pyotr Dolgov died much later: on November 1, 1962, during a parachute jump from a stratospheric balloon raised to a height of 25.5 kilometers. When Dolgov left the stratospheric balloon, the face shield of the pressure helmet cracked - death occurred instantly.

Record-breaking skydiver Pyotr Dolgov really died, but space has nothing to do with it

Pilot Anokhin flew on a rocket plane, not on a spaceship

I present all these details here not in order to amaze the reader or make him doubt the history of astronautics as we know it. A review of rumors and mythical episodes is needed to show how detrimental the policy of silence and disinformation was to the reputation of the domestic space program. The reluctance and inability to admit mistakes played a cruel joke on us: even when TASS made a completely truthful statement, they refused to believe it, looking for contradictions or trying to read “between the lines.”

Sometimes the test pilots themselves contribute to the spread of rumors. Shortly before his death in 1986, the outstanding Soviet pilot Sergei Anokhin said in an interview: “I flew on a rocket.” Journalists immediately asked the question: when and on what rocket could he fly? They remembered that from the mid-1960s Anokhin headed the department in Sergei Korolev’s bureau that trained “civilian” cosmonauts for flights. And he himself was part of the detachment. Is it because he already had experience “flying on a rocket” in the early 1950s?.. But in fact, long before working at the bureau, Anokhin participated in testing a rocket plane and a cruise missile and, most likely, had this in mind.

James Oberg, one of the debunkers of this "conspiracy theory"

American space technology expert James Oberg undertook to systematize all the rumors about Soviet cosmonautics that had appeared in the Western press since the mid-1960s. Based on the collected material, he wrote the article “Phantoms of Space,” first published in 1975. Now this work has been supplemented with new materials and has gone through many reprints. Having a reputation as a staunch anti-Soviet, Oberg is nevertheless very scrupulous in selecting information concerning the secrets of the Soviet space program, and is very careful in drawing conclusions. Without denying that there are many “blank spots” in the history of Soviet cosmonautics, he concludes that stories about cosmonauts dying during launch or in orbit are implausible. All these are the fruits of fantasy, heated by the regime of secrecy.

Reality vs Myth

Soviet cosmonauts really died - both before and after Gagarin’s flight. Let us remember them and bow our heads to Valentin Bondarenko (died on Earth, without ever flying into space, on March 23, 1961 due to a fire during testing), Vladimir Komarov (died on April 24, 1967 due to a disaster during the landing of the Soyuz spacecraft). 1"), Georgy Dobrovolsky, Vladislav Volkov and Viktor Patsayev (died on June 30, 1971 due to depressurization of the Soyuz-11 descent module). However, in the history of Soviet cosmonautics there was and is not secret corpses.

For cynics who do not believe documents, memoirs and diaries, but rely on “logic” and “common sense,” I will give a cynical but absolutely logical argument. In the conditions of the space race, it did not matter whether the first cosmonaut returned to Earth or not - the main thing was to declare his priority. Therefore, if there had been pilot Zavodovsky on the 1KP satellite, as irresponsible authors are trying to assure us, it would be Zavodovsky who would have been declared the first cosmonaut of the planet. Of course, the whole world would mourn him, but the Soviet man would still be the first to be in space, and this is the main thing.

The readiness of the USSR government for any outcome of the flight is confirmed by declassified documents. I will give here a fragment of a note sent to the CPSU Central Committee on March 30, 1961 on behalf of those involved in the space program:

We consider it appropriate to publish the first TASS message immediately after the satellite enters orbit for the following reasons:

a) if necessary, this will facilitate the rapid organization of rescue;
b) this will prevent any foreign state from declaring an astronaut a spy for military purposes...

Here is another document on the same topic. On April 3, the CPSU Central Committee adopted a resolution “On the launch of a spacecraft-satellite”:

1. Approve the proposal<…>about the launch of the Vostok-3 spacecraft with an astronaut on board.
2. Approve the draft TASS report on the launch of a spacecraft with an astronaut on board an Earth satellite and grant the Launch Commission the right, if necessary, to make clarifications on the launch results, and the USSR Council of Ministers Commission on Military-Industrial Issues to publish it.

They did it as they decided. The TASS report dedicated to the first manned flight into space sounded even before Gagarin returned to Earth. He could have died during the descent - and April 12 would still have become Cosmonautics Day.

began long before man was there. Many people remember those times when seeing planet Earth or visiting the Moon was something out of the world of science fiction. Today, every schoolchild knows the date April 12, 1961 - first man's flight into space. This event, which was watched by the whole world, is associated with the name of the Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin; his flight lasted 108 minutes.

This was a colossal success for Soviet scientists, the beginning of the history of mastering the territory of weightlessness, the whole country was waiting for Gagarin’s triumphant return home. After all, no matter how well the astronaut was prepared, no one knew what exactly was happening outside our planet. Year of the first flight into space knows the whole world, and April 12 has since become an official holiday.

The history of space exploration is the most striking example of the triumph of the human mind over once unruly matter. The first object that was able to fly into Earth’s orbit took 50 years to create by the standards of historical chronicles, which is quite a bit. Before made the first flight into space Yuri Gagarin, the textbook Belka and Strelka, whose return no one expected, have already been there. But it took place, and the shaggy ones returned home.

The flight took place in August 1960 on the fifth satellite; in one day the animals managed to fly around the planet 17 times. It was no coincidence that they chose white dogs - the image on the screens was black and white, so contrast was required to observe the behavior of Belka and Strelka. They developed a special system for training dogs; they had to get used to wearing a vest and calmly respond to surveillance sensors. Most of all, scientists were concerned about how the state of weightlessness would affect the body, and it was impossible to answer this question while on Earth. This honorable task faced the shaggy cosmonauts.

After 8 months it was completed first manned space flight. Immediately before Gagarin, in March, a dog named Zvezdochka flew there. Future cosmonauts were also present at the launch of the spacecraft to make sure that the object was completely ready for a safe human flight. Senior Lieutenant Gagarin also studied the technique. After it took place first manned space flight every year new discoveries were made.

It must be said that Belka and Strelka and Yuri Gagarin are far from the first living beings to conquer the territory of weightlessness. Before that, the dog Laika visited there, whose flight was prepared for 10 years and ended sadly - she died. Turtles, mice, and monkeys have also flown into space. The most striking flights, and there were only three of them, were made by a dog named Zhulka. Twice she launched on high-altitude rockets, the third - on a ship, which turned out to be not so perfect and suffered technical failures. The ship could not reach orbit, and a decision was considered to destroy it.

But again there are problems in the system, and the ship returns home prematurely and falls. The satellite was discovered in Siberia. No one hoped for a successful outcome of the search, not to mention the dog. But after surviving a terrible accident, hunger and thirst, Zhulka was saved and lived for another 14 years after the fall.

Gagarin in space. How it was

Day April 12, 1961 - began first flights into space man, it became a milestone and divided the history of the exploration of weightless space into two periods - when man only dreamed of stars and the time of conquest of the “dark” territory. Gagarin started as a senior lieutenant and landed with the new rank of major. Baikonur Cosmodrome, launch pad No. 1, at exactly 9:07 Moscow time, the Vostok-1 spacecraft set off with the first person on board. It took 90 minutes to fly around planet Earth and cover 41 thousand km.

Yuri Gagarin's first flight into space took place, he landed near Saratov and since then he has become one of the most revered and famous people Planets. It must be said that the astronaut had to experience a lot during the flight, he was well prepared, but even the most approximate conditions at home during training cannot be compared with what actually happened. The ship tumbled repeatedly, had to endure a lot of overloads, and there were system failures, but everything ended well. Thus, the Soviet Union won the space race with the United States.

The first manned flight into space: the most interesting things

A simple Soviet guy, Yuri Gagarin, accomplished a real feat, it was he who accomplished first flight into space this brought real success to the young man, now he will remain forever in the hearts of people with his famous “Let's go!” and a wide, kind smile. Do we know everything about this flight? There are many facts that were carefully hidden from the Soviet public until recently.

• Valentin Bondarenko could have become the first cosmonaut, but literally two weeks before the launch of the spacecraft, he died during a fire in a pressure chamber.
• Before entering the Earth's atmosphere, there was a failure in the automation responsible for separating the compartments, so the ship tumbled for 10 minutes.
• The landing in the Saratov region was not planned; Gagarin missed the target by 2800 km. The first people to meet the astronaut were the wife and daughter of a local forester.
• When selecting dogs for space flight, preference was given exclusively to females, since they did not raise their legs when relieving themselves.
• Gagarin's first flight into space could have ended tragically, so he wrote his wife a farewell letter, in case he did not return. Therefore, it was given away not in 1961, but in 1968 after a plane crash in which the astronaut died.

German Titov was much better physically prepared for the flight, but the charisma of his competitor played a key role here. Despite the fact that the Americans tried in every possible way to assign the title of discoverer to themselves and disputed year of the first manned space flight, arguing that they were there before, all their judgments are unfounded.

Was Gagarin the first in space? Or was he the first to return alive from orbit? Why are they still talking about the cosmonauts who died before him, and what mysteries of the first flights have only recently been declassified? 108 minutes that shocked the world - what were they worth? Read about this in the documentary investigation of the Moscow Trust TV channel.

First before Gagarin

November 10, 1959. A newspaper with sensational material is published in the USA. It contains a secret recording of conversations between the chief Soviet designer Sergei Korolev and the cosmonaut: “Earth. Pressure is normal.” After a minute of silence: “I can’t hear you, the batteries have failed. Oxygen. Comrades, for God’s sake, what to do? What? I can’t. Do you understand? Do you understand?” Then the astronaut’s speech turned into an indistinct muttering and disappeared completely. According to journalist Allen Henders, the deceased's name was Alexander Belokonev.

“As for Gagarin, there is no smoke without fire. There are some factors that allow rumors to emerge. We all know the canonical date of Gagarin’s flight – April 12, but before his flight there were five satellite ships on which the flight of the Vostok spacecraft was tested,” - said Vadim Lukashevich.

Andrey Simonov has been researching flight tests in our country for many years. He admits experiments in this industry have been going on since 1953.

Yuri Gagarin, 1961. Photo: ITAR-TASS

“Nobody wanted to show, imagine: the world’s first man in space, and suddenly death. It would be an even greater shame than if we fell behind. Therefore, we checked it down to the smallest detail so that there was a 100% guarantee of success.
On the eve of Gagarin's flight, the Daily Worker publishes an article from its Moscow correspondent. He reports: “On April 8, Vladimir Ilyushin, a test pilot, the son of a legendary aircraft designer, made an orbital flight on board the Rossiya spacecraft.” It is he who will be listed in the Guinness Book of Records for 1964 as the first cosmonaut on the planet,” comments Andrei Simonov.

“The Hungarian writer Eastwood Nemory wrote a whole book about how the first cosmonaut was Viktor Ilyushin, who survived, but was in unsightly shape after this unsuccessful landing,” said Yuri Karash.

The Italian agency "Continental", shortly after Gagarin's return, published an interview with its scientists, the Undico-Cordillo brothers, who said that since 1957 they had recorded three tragedies in space. In their space listening center they picked up radio signals from the dying, groans and intermittent heartbeat. Those recordings still exist today.

"Initially, about 3,000 people were selected. We looked first of all at their medical records, that is, there was an almost absolute requirement physical health. Of these, as a result of a strict selection, 6 people were retained and flew under the Vostok program. In fact, of course, more were selected,” adds Yuri Karash.

The last unofficial flight in the foreign press is listed as February 4, 1961. The Baikonur launch actually took place that day, but who flew? Why didn't you come back? The details remained classified for many years.

Why did cosmonaut Bondarenko die?

The West is convinced that Gagarin only played the role of the first cosmonaut to hide his failures.

“Before Gagarin’s flight, the Americans were also working on their Mercury spacecraft, they had two suborbital launches, they managed to launch them. The rhesus monkey Sam flew in the first, and the first astronaut, the chimpanzee Ham, flew in the second. He flew two months before Gagarin, he rose to a height of 285 km vertically. Perhaps that is why Korolev began to say that there was no point in launching Gagarin suborbitally, it was necessary to immediately make a full orbit. Otherwise he would have been second behind the monkey. Therefore, the race was neck and neck," said Vadim Lukashevich.

Today, astronauts acknowledge the death of one of their colleagues. This really happened before Gagarin, and they don’t like to talk about it. Valentin Bondarenko was one of the favorites of the first squad - the youngest and most cheerful. Pilot-cosmonaut Viktor Gorbatko was friends with him, but even he admits that he died through his own fault.

"We heated food and tea on ordinary spiral tiles. We wiped his head for sensors with alcohol, and an alcohol swab accidentally fell on the tile - he was getting ready to have dinner. A fire occurred, he had 80% burns, he was taken away in an ambulance, but he I lived only two or three hours,” recalls Viktor Gorbatko.

Yuri Gagarin before the start. Photo: ITAR-TASS

Gagarin could not say goodbye to Bondarenko, he is called to the start. There is a battle for space. Before sending Yuri Gagarin into flight, he and his backup, German Titov, are brought to the cosmodrome twice. They work out to the smallest detail everything that can be done on Earth, and for real: in spacesuits, with a report, with negotiations.

“They rehearsed the landing, reported, they were taken in an elevator to the very top, to the ship. Everything was done except boarding the ship. That is, a large retinue: conscript soldiers standing in a cordon saw that the cosmonauts reported, went to the rocket, rocket flew away,” said Vadim Lukashevich.

This is how rumors are born. They are also fueled by kitchen conversations of dissidents who do not trust the authorities.

“Once I was in Italy, those who proved that Gagarin and Tereshkova were not the first gathered there,” recalls Viktor Gorbatko.

Late 70s Almost twenty years after Gagarin's flight. Cosmonauts can already divulge some details of the first launches. Then Viktor Gorbatko says for the first time that Valentin Bondarenko died not in space, but in a soundproofing chamber during a test. But those radio signals that the Italian brothers heard really existed, and they came from space.

“Radio transmitters were taken on board. They simply recorded the voice and watched how the signal would pass to Earth. There were simple call signs: “Reception!”, “Can you hear me?”, etc. Western pilots, having heard this, might well have thought “that a person is saying this, although in fact it was a tape recorder speaking,” said Andrei Simonov.

Human trials

So was astronaut number zero, and who are the people whose names were named by the largest foreign publications? Why did they believe in them so much? Was Gagarin the first, second or twelfth cosmonaut in the world? The first journalistic investigation appeared in the summer of 1965.

“In American publications - Belokonev, Ledovsky, Shiborin, Gusev, Zavadovsky also flew before Gagarin - a lot of names were given. And it turned out that in 1959 in the Ogonyok magazine there was a detailed publication where testers of spacesuits for pilots, not for cosmonauts, were interviewed And they said that they were testing high-altitude spacesuits. And so the Americans took the names of people from this group and passed them off as astronauts.
But questions remain. What really happened to Vladimir Ilyushin?" said Andrei Simonov.

"He was very unique person. In 1959, he set a world record for airplane flight altitude, and a lot has been written about him. And then in 1960 he suddenly disappeared from view. Everything was simple: on June 8, 1960, he got into a car accident on the way from Moscow to Zhukovsky, and for a long time was treated. This year he was awarded the title of hero Soviet Union, and he came on crutches to the presentation. And, apparently, someone saw, and gossip began to spread that he had an unsuccessful flight into space. Although he himself always denied it,” recalls Simonov.

Yuri Gagarin in the Grand Kremlin Palace, 1961. Photo: ITAR-TASS

Evgeny Kiryushin is also one of those who was named among the dead cosmonauts. His friends heard about this on a foreign radio station.

"Someone randomly asked me: 'Oh! Are you alive? “I heard you died” - “No, I say, you’re alive!” said Evgeny Kiryushin.

Kiryushin was one of those who did everything to prevent the cosmonauts from dying. For more than 20 years, he was officially listed as either a simple laboratory assistant or a mechanic at the Institute of Space Medicine. Only in the early 1990s did it become possible to speak out loud about his work, and he received the title of Hero of Russia.

“Let’s say, explosive decompression, when they checked the suit for an explosion - a fraction of a second passes until complete depressurization, from earth pressure to vacuum - three tenths of a second. God knows what can happen: maybe lightning will tear off, maybe the helmet, and maybe the head ", explained Kiryushin.

There are countless tragedies among the testers; not many can withstand twelve-fold overloads and emergency ejection. A common injury is a spinal fracture. Until the very end, no one knows how a person will behave in space. It is believed that in a state of weightlessness he will simply go crazy. Gagarin's entire ship control panel is blocked. The code is in a special envelope; a deranged pilot will not be able to decipher it. Before last minute the success of the flight is in doubt.

“After the Second World War, the International Commission prohibited experiments and tests on people. But how can you develop such a new industry as astronautics without conducting experiments with people? This is impossible, therefore, despite all sorts of international acts, we had a group of testers who did this.” , - said Evgeny Kiryushin.

Vadim Lukashevich has written more than one book about astronautics. He believes that the Americans, by spreading rumors about Soviet launch failures, did not want to belittle the achievements of the Soviet country. On the contrary, they were frightened by such information. During cold war they kept a close eye on the Russians. For meetings in the US Congress on the budget, the Pentagon even published a special brochure “Soviet Military Power”.

"The West then accepted very little information about the Soviet Union. To the point that they would not say where we started from. We started from Chuo Tama, but they said that from Baikonur, and this is hundreds of kilometers away. And the Americans recognized the launch site from ballistic calculations, looking at where the rocket took off from. Gagarin is the first person in space, but according to the rules of the international association, in order to register a record, he had to take off in a ship and land in a ship. And he ejected at an altitude of 80 km and landed on a parachute separately, but when we submitted documents to register the record, we hid it. That is, they thought up a lot of things,” said Vadim Lukashevich.

Death of Ivan Ivanovich

Larisa Uspenskaya knows the secrets of space flight like no one else. For many years she has been in charge of the archive of the first cosmonaut corps. Unique, recently closed documents are stored here.

“In 2011, when celebrations and anniversary events took place, a massive declassification of documents was carried out. Documents from the archives of the president, the state authorities at that time and our department were declassified. Recently, a non-departmental commission declassified a significant block of archives relating to the first space flights,” said Larisa Uspenskaya .

The very first recordings of the archive of Gagarin's flight were made in real time by Korolev and the cosmonaut personally immediately after landing. Gagarin writes how he lost his pencil in weightlessness, how he was thirsty, how the ship deviated from course.

Designer Sergei Korolev and first cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, 1961. Photo: ITAR-TASS

“The Americans took direction finding of Gagarin’s negotiations with the Earth during the flight and woke up the president that the race was lost,” said Vadim Lukashevich.

Meanwhile, three weeks earlier, a resident of the village of Korsha, in Western Kazakhstan, discovered a man in a spacesuit on a high spruce tree - he landed unsuccessfully with a parachute. The news about the deceased cosmonaut quickly spread around the area. But no one had time to get close to him: the military arrived and the victim disappeared without a trace.

“We can only call the dummy Ivan Ivanovich as cosmonaut number zero. It was absolutely impossible to imagine how the human body would react. The overloads that the astronauts were subjected to during training and testing on Earth could not compare with what would happen there,” said Larisa Uspenskaya .

Officially, two dummies flew into space, jokingly nicknamed Ivan Ivanovich by the designers. In order not to scare people, they will write on the suit of the second one: “Model”. But it was impossible to stop the rumors.

“It was only fifty years later that the UN established that April 12, 1961 is the day of the first human flight into space,” said Viktor Gorbatko.

Today, for $1 million, anyone can go into space. But has it become safe? What are astronauts still hiding?

“I was worried, of course, but there was no fear. Unfortunately, the previous crew, when we flew to Almaz (the Salyut-5 military station), panicked, they began to take things more and more acutely, which caused a deterioration in their health, and this led to an emergency landing, and for some time it was even believed that the station was poisoned.

Only behind the scenes, testers say that the risk in flights has not disappeared. It's still roulette, which is why they sign non-disclosure documents. Their reports are kept as secret files for years.

“As a result of each flight, not counting TASS reports, a whole complex of documents arises. For example, Gagarin’s flight log has not yet been published. What do we know about the flights after Gagarin?” - Vadim Lukashevich argues.

It would seem that the veil of secrecy of the first flights has been lifted, and except for dogs and mannequins, no one had been in orbit before Gagarin, but until all the documents are declassified, these questions will be investigated again and again.

Major Gagarin completed the task. After him, Viktor Gorbatko managed to travel into space three times, each time the mission was made more difficult.

“Plains, forests, all this can be seen from space. On my second flight, taking the appropriate equipment, we could see a person,” recalls Viktor Gorbatko.