The Complete Book of Spaceflight: From Apollo 1 to Zero Gravity

[541 days] carried the same doll back into orbit
aboard Mir to mark the 30th anniversary of Gagarin’s
flight.) Gagarin had no control over his spacecraft; a
“logical lock” blocked any actions he might make in
panic because, at the time, little was known of how
humans would react to conditions in space. In case of
emergency, Gagarin had access to a sealed envelope in
which the logical lock code was written. To use the
controls he would have had to prove that he was capable
of doing the simple task of reading the combination
and punching three of nine buttons. However, in
the event, this proved unnecessary and radio signals
from the ground guided the spacecraft to a successful
reentry. At a height of 8,000 m, Gagarin ejected from
his capsule and parachuted to the ground, southeast
of Moscow near the Volga river, some 1,600 km from
where he took off. Official details of the flight were
not released until May 30, when an application was
issued to the International Aeronautical Federation
(FAI) to make the flight a world record. Gagarin’s
midair departure from Vostok was kept a secret much
longer because the FAI required the pilot to return in
his craft in order for the record to be valid. It would
be another month before Alan Shepard made his
suborbital flight, and 10 months before John Glenn
became the first American in orbit.
Vostok 2
The first manned spaceflight to last a whole day. The
36-year-old pilot, Gherman Titov, ate some food
Vostok Flights
pastes on his third orbit and later took manual control
and changed the spacecraft’s attitude. About 10 hours
into the mission, he tried to catch some sleep but
became nauseous—the first of many space travelers to
experience space motion sickness. However, Titov
did eventually fall asleep for over seven hours before
waking for a perfect reentry and landing, 25 hours 18
minutes after launch.
Vostok 3 and 4
The first manned double launch. Vostok 3 and 4 took
off from the same launch pad a day apart and were
placed in such accurate orbits that the spacecraft
passed within 6.5 km of each other. No closer rendezvous
than this was possible, however, because the
Vostoks were not equipped for maneuvering. The
joint flight continued, with the two cosmonauts,
Nikoleyev and Popovitch, talking to each other and
with ground control by radio. Finally, the spacecraft
reentered almost simultaneously and landed just a few
minutes apart.
Vostok 5 and 6
Another double launch, this time involving the first
woman in space—26-year-old Valentina Tereshkova.
She returned to Earth after almost three days in orbit,
followed by Valery Bykovsky a few hours later at the
conclusion of a five-day flight that has remained the
longest mission by a single-seater spacecraft. (See
table, “Vostok Flights.”)
Mission Launch Recovery Orbits Pilot
Vostok 1 Apr. 12, 1961 Apr. 12, 1961 1 Yuri Gagarin
Vostok 2 Aug. 6, 1961 Aug. 7, 1961 17 Gherman Titov
Vostok 3 Aug. 11, 1962 Aug. 15, 1962 64 Adrian Nikolayev
Vostok 4 Aug. 12, 1962 Aug. 15, 1962 48 Pavel Popovich
Vostok 5 Jun. 14, 1963 Jun. 19, 1963 81 Valery Bykovsky
Vostok 6 Jun. 16, 1963 Jun. 19, 1963 48 Valentina Tereshkova
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