Half of all Soviet launches till date had been failures, but Gagarin was upbeat.
He asked to listen to some music while he waited for technicians to repair the faulty hatch.
Lets roll!, Gagarin spoke into the microphone as the rocket lifted off the launch pad.
The visibility is good …
I almost see everything, Gagarin radioed back.
I’m in good spirits, he added.
The flight continued without any hurdles.
As the Vostok passed over Siberia, Gagarin reported: The craft is operating normally.
I can see Earth in the view port of the Vzor.
Everything is proceeding as planned.
Gagarin flew over the North Pacific and crossed into night, northwest of the Hawaiian Islands.
It was time to go home.
That was when the first troubles broke out.
As a result, the engine ran out of gas and shut down earlier than schedule.
I had barely enough time to cover myself to protect my eyes from the Sun’s rays.
I put my legs to the porthole, but didn’t exit the blinds.
While still gyrating uncontrollably, Gagarin was faced with another problem.
The reentry module had not yet separated from the service module.
The two parts of the rocket was supposed to separate ten seconds after the burn ended.
Photo:Dan Beaumont Space Musuem/Flickr
As Gagarin continued his descent, extreme g-forces tore through his muscles.
It was starting turning gray in my eyes.
I braced and composed myself.
It helped, everything kind of returned to its place.
Gagarin is believed to have experienced about 8g during reentry.
Gagarin’s ejection seat then came loose and moments later his parachute was deployed.
The reentry module fell freely until its own parachute was deployed at 2.5 km.
Ten minutes after ejecting, Gagarin landed gently in an open field.
The freshly plowed soil cushioned his fall.
He fell more than 300 km away from his designated landing site.
Vostok 1’s reentry capsule after landing.
He drove Gagarin to his unit so that could make the call.
Lies and secrets
The Vostok mission was undertaken under great secrecy.
It took sometime for Moscow to realize they were victims of a shrewd scam.
Three decades later, the lie became true when in 1995 Leninsk was officially renamed Baikonur.
Among its duties is the verification of record-breaking flights and arbitration of disputes over records.
The FAI specifies certain guidelines for spaceflight.
This requirement was created to prevent pilots from flying crafts that could not be safely land.
The FAI did not wanted to encourage pilots to risk their lives for an aviation record.
This rule became a problem for Gagarin because he did not land inside his spacecraft.
Therefore, the cosmonaut was ejected from the craft.
Gherman Titov, Nikita Khrushchev and Yuri Gagarin on the Red Square in Moscow on 20 November 1961.
But unlike Gagarin, Titov spoke the truth.
He owned up to ejecting himself.
In front of this is a 3 meter tall white stone statue of Yuri Gagarin.
