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The Vostok, weighing nearly five tons, was fired into orbit by a multi-stage rocket at 9.7 a.m. (Moscow time), circled the earth in one hour 48 minutes at a speed of 18,000 m.p.h. and a maximum height of 188 miles, and was brought back safely to earth as stated. The sites of launching and landing were not disclosed.

The following details were given by the Tass Agency and by Moscow radio, which described Major Gagarin as "the Columbus of interplanetary space": the Vostok was put into an orbit with an apogee of 187 1/2 miles and a perigee of 108 1/2 miles; the spaceship weighed 4,725 kilograms (4 3/4 tons), excluding the last stage of the carrier rocket; Major Gagarin had "satisfactorily withstood the placing of the Vostok into orbit" and maintained two-way radio communication during orbital flight; his condition in flight had been observed by radio-telemetric and television systems; the "systems ensuring the necessary conditions for life in the spaceship's cabin" had functioned normally.

Major Gagarin was born on March 9, 1934, in the Gzhatsk district of the Smolensk region (Russian Federation), the son of a collective farmer. He went to school in 1941 but, like many children in the Western parts of the U.S.S.R., had to discontinue his education because of the Nazi invasion. At the end of the war his parents returned to Gzhatsk, where he continued his secondary education, and in 1951 he graduated with distinction from a vocational school near Moscow, where he qualified as a moulder. He later entered an industrial college at Saratov, graduating with honours in 1955. Interested in flying from an early age, he took an instructional flying course at Saratov and on completing it in 1955 entered an aviation school at Orenburg. A member of the Communist Party, which he joined in 1960, Major Gagarin is married to a medical graduate and has two infant daughters.

Interviewed on April 13 by a Tass correspondent, Major Gagarin described his historic flight in outer space, his reactions to conditions of weightlessness, and the appearance of the Earth as seen from outer space.

Although no precise details of the landing were given, the Soviet press and radio disclosed that Major Gagarin had descended in the "pre-determined area" by parachute and not from the spaceship itself. Major Gagarin was questioned on this point at a press conference on April 16, but replied non-committally: "Many techniques of landing have been developed in our country; one of them is the parachute technique." He disclosed, however, that he had not carried any cameras and had taken no pictures, but had seen "the bluish globe of earth" through the portholes of the Vostok.

Prior to Major Gagarin's orbital flight, the U.S.S.R. had carried out two further successful experiments in March as part of the preparations for the Soviet man-in-space programme. In the first, on March 9, a 4 1/2-ton satellite with a dog and biological specimens on board was put into orbit, circled the earth, and landed in the pre-determined area on a command signal. Another spaceship, weighing five tons and having on board a dog, mice, guinea pigs, frogs, and various microorganisms, was also successfully orbited and returned to earth on March 25. (Soviet Embassy Press Department, London Times - Daily Telegraph - Guardian - New York Times)

This article comes from Keesings Worldwide Online

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