How Russia’s astronauts trained for space
(Image credit: Universal History Archive / Getty Images)
As the faces of Nasa’s Mercury Seven splashed across the world’s media, Russian cosmonauts secretly trained, hid from the public eye.
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On April 13, 1961, the Soviet newspaper Izvestia’s special correspondent Georgi Ostroumov met the first man in space. Ostroumov, ‘reports’ Yuri Gagarin, a day after returning ‘space pilot’ to Earth, he is tall, hearty and cordial … a wonderful smile illuminates his face. ‘
“Every now and then pits appear on his cheeks,” Ostroumov writes. “He appreciates the curiosity with which he is pressured for the details of what he saw and experienced during the one and a half hours he spent outside of the earth.”
In a booklet published in memory of the flight, Soviet Man in Space, the interview with Gagarin continues for a few pages. The cosmonaut describes the experience: “The horizon offers a very unique and extraordinarily beautiful sight.” And praises the Soviet Union: “I dedicate my flight … to all our people who rise to the forefront of humanity and build a new society.”
In a political system where journalism tends to propaganda, rather than a realistic depiction of events, it is easy to argue that Gagarin’s quotes are made up. Although they may have been refined by sensors, chances are they are the cosmonaut’s actual words.
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Gagarin, a fighter pilot who grew up in a small Russian village, was a family man. He was indeed handsome, personal and, very importantly, a loyal card-bearing member of the Communist Party.
Although the drama of Nasa’s early human space program took place in public, the full story of how the Soviet Union selected and trained its cosmonauts has recently emerged. The communist empire wanted to encourage the view that selection was open to all and that these first men in space – and the first woman, Valentina Tereshkova – were volunteers. But it is not true.
The Soviet Union has poured large resources into the space program, but officially does not exist (credit: Gamma Keystone / Getty Images)
After qualifying as a fighter pilot, Gagarin was stationed at a remote airfield on the Russian border with Norway flying MiG-15 jet fighters on the western border of the Cold War. At the end of the summer of 1959, two doctors came to the base to interview a pre-selected group of pilots. After the doctors began a list of about 3,500 potential candidates, they limited their search to 300 pilots across western Russia.
“The guys being interviewed do not really know why they are being interviewed,” said Stephen Walker, the author of Beyond, who spent years searching Russian archives to compile the full story of Gagarin’s mission.
The interview consists of a seemingly comfortable conversation about career, aspirations and family. Some men are invited back for a second conversation. Although the doctors indicate that they are looking for candidates for a new type of flying machine, they do not reveal their true motivation at any stage.
“They are looking for military pilots, people who have already signed up for the possibility of killing themselves for their country, who are actually dealing with this, because the chances of coming back alive are not necessarily that great,” says Walker.
While Nasa recruits military test pilots as its first astronaut to fly its complex Mercury spacecraft, the Soviet capsule, Vostok is designed to be controlled remotely from the ground. Except in an emergency, the pilots will not fly much.
“They’re not looking for people with a lot of experience,” Walker says. “What they’re looking for is basically a human version of a dog – someone who can sit there and endure the mission, handle the accelerating forces and come back to life.”
The first intake of potential cosmonauts, abbreviated to 20, including Yuri Gagarin, second from left (credit: Keystone / Hulton Archive / Getty Images)
And just like the space dogs that Soviet rocket scientists have been launching into space for more than a decade, cosmonauts will have to be fit, obedient, and small enough to fit in the cramped capsule.
Eventually, 134 selected individuals – all young pilots, all less than 168 cm tall – are given the opportunity to ‘volunteer’ for this new, secret mission. Some are told that it will involve training to fly a spacecraft, others believe it is a new helicopter model. None of the pilots may discuss the offer with their colleagues or consult their families.
Meanwhile, in April 1959, the United States announced the names of its first seven Mercury astronauts. The candidates went through a series of grueling physical, medical and psychological tests – as outlined in Tom Wolfe’s book (and subsequent film and recent TV series) The Right Stuff.
Asked at a press conference which of the tests they hold the most, astronaut John Glenn replied: ‘It’s hard to choose one, because if you find out how many openings there are in the human body, and how far you are in any one can go? of them … you answer which one would be the hardest for you. ‘
But there are still many questions about how humans can handle the difficulty of space travel – the acceleration, weightlessness and isolation – there is every reason to choose the most physical and psychological.
The man responsible for testing the Soviet space candidates is Vladimir Yazdovsky, a professor at the Institute of Aeronautics and Space Medicine in Moscow. He previously supervised the space dog program and is described by colleagues (privately) as a harsh and arrogant man.
“He’s a scary James Bond horror character,” Walker says, “and he’s cruel to these guys.
The grueling training placed less emphasis on NAV than pilot skills (credit: TASS / AFP / Getty Images)
In almost every case, the Soviet tests are longer, tougher, and stricter than the American astronauts have endured. The candidates are injected, examined and encouraged for more than a month. They are placed in the rooms, with the temperature raised to 70C (158F), rooms where they are gradually starved of oxygen and vibrating seats to simulate the launch. Some candidates collapse, others just walk out.
Throughout the process, the men are forbidden to tell their family or friends what they are doing. Even in that month of testing, there were still people who did not know what they were being tested for.
Eventually, 20 of these young men move on to a new cosmonaut center. It will be named Star City, but it is initially just a few military huts in a forest near Moscow. There is no press conference or announcement. Officially, the Soviet human space 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 controlled, everything is secret. Everything is behind closed doors.”
The training program is similar to the Americans, but with less emphasis on the control of the spacecraft. Like the space dogs they pursue, the men are spun on centrifuges with dizzying accelerations, sealed for days in a row in soundproof isolation rooms and subjected to almost constant physical and psychological evaluation.
One important difference with the American program is the amount of parachute training the Russians receive. This is because they have to be ejected from their spacecraft while crashing to the ground to prevent them from being seriously injured by the impact. The fact that the capsule and the pilot land separately is another secret that will only be revealed years later.
Since a few more men do not graduate, an initial group of six cosmonauts is selected for the first flight. While Nasa has publicly stated that it hopes to launch its first man in the spring of 1961, the head of the Soviet program, Sergei Korolev, knows he has a narrow chance.
The cosmonauts had to undergo many of the same tracks that Nasa’s astronauts did, such as training in weightlessness (credit: Keystone Gamma / Getty Images)
On April 5, 1961, the cosmonauts arrive at the present Baikonur Cosmodrome in the Kazakh desert, where Korolev’s giant R7 rocket is being prepared. None of them know who will be first in space. Finally, just a few days before the launch, Gagarin gets the nod.
Only when an official broadcast takes place when Gagarin is in orbit above the earth does everyone except those closest to the space program know his name.
According to Izvestia’s special correspondent, Ostroumov, on the morning of April 12, Gagarin gave a final wave to friends and comrades among [the rocket] then he steps into the spaceship, a few seconds later the command is given … the giant ship rose from a fiery cloud to the stars. ‘
He would bring the poster child for the Soviet Union back to earth – the space pilot with the Russian Right Stuff.
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