How Russian cosmonauts trained for space
(Image credit: Universal History Archive / Getty Images
While the faces of Nasa’s Mercury Seven were splashed by the world’s media, Russian cosmonauts trained in secret, hidden from the public.
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On April 13, 1961, special correspondent Georgi Ostroumov of the Soviet newspaper Izvestia meets the first man in space. A day after returning to Earth, “space pilot” Yuri Gagarin, Ostroumov reports, is “cheerful, healthy and hearty … a beautiful smile brightens his face.”
“Dimples appear on his cheeks every now and then,” Ostroumov writes. “He appreciates the curiosity with which he is depressed about the details of what he saw and experienced during the hour and a half that he spent outside the Earth.”
In a booklet published in commemoration of the flight, Soviet Man in Space, the interview with Gagarin continues for several pages. The cosmonaut describes the experience: “The horizon offers a very unique and extraordinarily beautiful view.” And praises the Soviet Union: “I dedicate my flight to … all our people who are marching at the forefront of humanity and building a new society.”
In a political system where journalism leans towards propaganda, rather than realistic portrayal of events, it is easy to argue that Gagarin’s quotes are made up. But while they may have been refined by censorship, chances are they are the actual words of the cosmonaut.
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Gagarin, a fighter pilot who grew up in a small Russian village, was a beloved family man. He was indeed good-looking, handsome and, crucially, a loyal card-bearing member of the Communist Party.
Although the drama of Nasa’s early manned space program was set in public, the full story of how the Soviet Union selected and trained its cosmonauts has only recently been revealed. The communist empire was keen to promote the view that selection was open to all and that these first men in space – and the first woman, Valentina Tereshkova – were volunteers. But that’s not entirely true.
The Soviet Union put huge resources into the space program, but officially it didn’t exist (Credit: Gamma Keystone / Getty Images)
After qualifying as a fighter pilot, Gagarin is stationed at a remote airfield on Russia’s border with Norway with MiG-15 fighter jets on the western border of the Cold War. In the late summer of 1959, two doctors arrived at the base to interview a pre-selected group of pilots. After starting with a list of about 3,500 potential candidates, the doctors have already narrowed their search to about 300 pilots in western Russia.
“The guys being interviewed have no idea why they are being interviewed,” said Stephen Walker, the author of Beyond, who spent years scouring Russian archives to compile the full story of Gagarin’s mission.
The interview consists of an apparently casual conversation about career, ambitions and family. Some men are invited for a second interview. Although the doctors hint that they are looking for candidates for a new type of flying machine, at no point do they reveal their true motivation.
“They’re looking for military pilots, people who have already signed up for the opportunity to kill themselves for their country, that’s really what we’re dealing with here because the chances of coming back alive aren’t necessarily that. great, ”says Walker.
While Nasa is recruiting military test pilots to be the first astronauts to pilot its complex Mercury spacecraft, the Soviet capsule, Vostok is designed to be remotely controlled from the ground. Except in an emergency, the pilots will not be able to fly much.
“They’re not looking for people with a lot of experience,” Walker said. “What they’re looking for is basically a human version of a dog – someone who can sit there and get through the mission, absorb the acceleration forces, and come back to life.”
The first intake of potential cosmonauts was reduced to 20, including Yuri Gagarin, second from the left (Credit: Keystone / Hulton Archive / Getty Images)
And like the space dogs that Soviet rocket scientists have been launching into space for over a decade, cosmonauts will need to be fit, obedient, and small enough to fit in the tight capsule.
Ultimately, 134 selected individuals – all young pilots, all under 168 cm – were given the opportunity to volunteer for this new top-secret mission. Some are told it will be training to fly a spacecraft, others believe it is a new helicopter model. None of the pilots are allowed to discuss the offer with his colleagues or consult his family.
Meanwhile, in April 1959, the United States announced the names of its first seven Mercury astronauts. The candidates have undergone a series of grueling physical, medical and psychological tests – detailed in Tom Wolfe’s book (and subsequent movie and recent TV series) The Right Stuff.
When asked at a press conference which of the tests they liked least, astronaut candidate John Glenn replies, “ It’s hard to choose one because when you figure out how many openings there are on the human body and how far you can go in a of them … you answer which one would be the most difficult for you. “
But with many questions about how humans will cope with the rigors of spaceflight – the accelerations, weightlessness and isolation – there is every reason to choose the most physically and psychologically capable.
The man charged with testing the Soviet space candidates is Vladimir Yazdovsky, a professor at the Institute of Aerospace Medicine in Moscow. He has previously supervised the space dog program and is described by colleagues (in private) as a tough and arrogant man.
“He’s kind of a terrifying James Bond horror figure,” Walker said, “and he’s cruel to these guys.”
The grueling training had less of an emphasis than NASA on pilot skills (Credit: TASS / AFP / Getty Images)
In almost all cases, the Soviet tests are longer, tougher, and more rigorous than those of the US astronauts. During a month, the candidates are injected, examined and stimulated. They are placed in chambers where the temperatures are raised to 70C (158F), chambers where they are gradually oxygen starved, and vibrating chairs to simulate the launch. Some candidates collapse, others just walk away.
Throughout the process, the men are forbidden to tell their family or friends what they were doing. Even in that test month, there were still people who did not know what they were being tested for.
Ultimately, 20 of these young men manage to train in a new cosmonaut center. It will be renamed Star City, but it will initially be just a few military huts in a forest near Moscow. There is no press conference or announcement. Officially, the Soviet manned space flight program does not exist.
“When they leave the base, they are told not to tell anyone what they are doing, why they are there, if anyone asks they should say they are part of a sports team,” Walker said. “Everything is checked, everything is secret. Everything is behind closed doors.”
The training program itself is similar to that of the Americans, but with less emphasis on piloting the spacecraft. Like the space dogs they track, the men are spun on centrifuges at dizzying speeds, locked in soundproof isolation rooms for days, and subjected to near-constant physical and psychological evaluation.
An important difference with the American program is the amount of parachute training that the Russians receive. This is because they must be removed from their spacecraft as they fall to the ground to avoid being seriously injured by the impact. The fact that the capsule and the pilot land separately is another secret that will not be revealed until years later.
With a number of men still failing to rank, a first group of six cosmonauts are selected for the first flights. With NASA publicly declaring it hopes to launch its first man in the spring of 1961, the head of the Soviet program, Sergei Korolev, knows he has a slim chance.
The cosmonauts had to go through many of the same paths as NASA’s astronauts, such as weightlessness training (Credit: Keystone Gamma / Getty Images)
On April 5, 1961, the cosmonauts arrive at what is now known as the Baikonur Cosmodrome in the Kazakh Desert, where Korolev’s giant R7 rocket is being prepared. Yet none of them know who will be first in space. Finally, just days before launch, Gagarin gets the nod.
It is only on official broadcast when Gagarin is in orbit above Earth that everyone knows his name, except those closest to the space program.
According to Izvestia’s special correspondent, Ostroumov, on the morning of April 12, Gagarin gave “one last wave to the friends and comrades below. [the rocket] then he stepped into the spaceship, a few seconds later the order was given… the gigantic ship rose from a fiery cloud towards the stars. “
He would return to Earth as the poster child for the Soviet Union – the space pilot with the Russian Right Stuff.
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