YURI GAGARIN, THE FIRST MAN IN SPACE, 1961 term paper

Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin (1934–1968), the first person in space, played a major part in the Soviet Union’s remarkable accomplishments in space technology in the late 1950s and 1960s. Although the United States was the first country to land men on the moon, the Soviet Union held the lead in space exploration for most of the 1960s.

Gagarin grew up on a collective farm and graduated from trade school in 1951. His interest in flying led him to enter the Soviet air force cadet school from which he graduated in 1957, the same year the Soviet Union launched Sputnik (Fellow Traveler), the first satellite in space. As a young and promising pilot, Gagarin joined the Soviet space program and was selected as the first cosmonaut.In 1961 he completed a single orbit around the earth aboard the spacecraft Vostok 1.

When Gagarin landed safely back in the Soviet Union, he instantly became everyone’s hero, not just in the USSR but all over the world. It was, of course, something that had never been done before. He was awarded the Order of Lenin and made a Hero of the Soviet Union and Pilot Cosmonaut of the Soviet Union. It was very much like the 1930s in the Soviet Union when record-setting pilots distracted the masses from the hardships of the Five-Year Plans.

Gagarin never went into space again; instead he became a trainer of other cosmonauts. Tragically, his life was cut short in 1968 when he and another pilot crashed on a routine training flight. The Soviet space program continued under the leadership of Sergei Pavlovich Korolev (1907–1966). Korolev directed the design, testing, construction, and launching of the Vostok, Voskhod, and Soyuz manned spacecraft. While Gagarin became the man of the hour after his successful flight, Korolev, in accordance with Soviet policy, worked in anonymity. His role in the Soviet space program was revealed only after his death. In the 1960s the Soviet space program was the first to send a woman into space and the first to send up a flight during which a man floated free in space. In the 1970s the Soviet space program experimented mostly with the construction and maintenance of space stations and in 1986 sent up the Mir space station.
Suggestions for Term Papers
1. Both the Soviet and the U.S. space programs depended initially on German rocket technology developed during World War II. Investigate the influence of German technology and German scientists on the two space programs.
2. Trace Gagarin’s career after his space flight. Why did he make such a good symbol for the Soviet space program and for Soviet science more generally?
3. Korolev was the central figure in the Soviet space program. Review his contributions to the program in the 1950s and 1960s.
4. It was a great disappointment to Korolev that he was not able to land a cosmonaut on the moon. What obstacles, scientific and political, prevented him from accomplishing this.
5. Compare the Soviet and U.S. space programs in the 1960s. Was one more successful than the other? State reasons for your position.
6. What goals did the Soviet Union set for its space program when it began the construction of space stations in the 1970s and 1980s? To what extent did it fulfill those goals? Provide evidence for your position.

Research Suggestions

In addition to the boldfaced items, look under the entries for “Khrushchev’s ‘Secret Speech’ at the Twentieth Party Congress, 1956” (#51), “Chernobyl, 1986” (#86), and “The Breakup of the Soviet Union, 1991” (#91). Search under Valentina Tereshkova, Aleksey Leonov, and Semipalatinsk (Soviet space facilities).

SUGGESTED SOURCES

Primary Sources

Gagarin, Yuri A., and V. I. Lebedev. Survival in Space. New York: Praeger, 1969. Also published as Psychology and Space. Gagarin on his record-breaking flight.

Lothian, Antonella. Valentina: First Woman in Space: Conversations with A. Lothian. Edinburgh: Pentland Press, 1993. Valentina Tereshkova talks about being the first woman in space.

Secondary Sources

Baker, David. Conquest: A History of Space Achievements from Science Fiction to the Shuttle. Salem, N.H.: Salem House, 1984. A good introduction.

Clark, Phillip. The Soviet Manned Space Program: An Illustrated History of the Men, the Missions, and the Spacecraft. New York: Orion Books, 1988. A good discussion of the Soviet program.

Harford, James. Korolev: How One Man Masterminded the Soviet Drive to Beat America to the Moon. New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1997. Makes use of Russian sources. The best biography in English of this important figure.

Hooper, Gordon R. The Soviet Cosmonaut Team: A Comprehensive Guide to the Men and Women of the Soviet Manned Space Programme.2 vols. 2nd rev. ed. Lowestoft, Suffolk, England: GRH Publications, 1990. An exhaustive reference source.

Logsdon, John M., and Alain Dupas. “Was the Race to the Moon Real?” Scientific American 270, no. 6 (June 1994), 36–40. An interesting discussion of the “space race” in the 1960s.

McDougall, Walter A. The Heavens and the Earth: A Political History of the Space Age. New York: Basic Books, 1985. An excellent history of the exploration of space.

Newkirk, Dennis. Almanac of Soviet Manned Space Flight. Houston: Gulf Publishing, 1990. A good reference source.

Secret Soviet Moon Mission [videorecording]. 60 minutes. Distributed by PBS Home Video, 1999. Covers the career of Sergei Pavlovich Korolev and focuses in particular on his efforts to land a Soviet cosmonaut on the moon.
World Wide Web

“A Giant Leap for Mankind: Russia Was First.” http://www.pathfinder.com/Life/space/giantleap/sec1/sec1.html. This Web site contains articles and pictures from coverage by Life magazine of major events in space exploration. A fascinating site.

“Space Race.” http://www.nasm.edu/galleries/gal/114. A comprehensive discussion of U.S. and Soviet competition in space.

“Sputnik, 1949–1961.” http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/cold.war/episodes/08. Based on CNN’s Cold War documentary series, the Web site includes background, documents, a transcript of the program, and other features.