The news of the first man's flight into space shook the whole world. Today everyone on the planet knows that the first manned flight into space took place on April 12, 1961, and this astronaut’s name was . This day is known as International Cosmonautics Day.

However, the world's first flight into space was made not by people, but by an animal. It was they who had to experience all the difficulties of space travel so that scientists could make human flight as safe as possible.

From the early fifties to the sixties of the last century, scientists conducted a series of experiments on animals in which they studied the effects of overload, weightlessness and vibration on a living organism. The first testers were not launched into orbit. They flew on rockets along a parabolic trajectory. The most suitable candidates for such tests were dogs. Of all the applicants, the choice fell on mongrels, since they were tougher than purebred candidates.

The first dogs in space

The first test dogs did not reach outer space. On July 22, 1951, stray dogs named Dezik and Gypsy made the first suborbital flight to an altitude of eighty-seven kilometers seven hundred meters. The R-1B rocket was launched from the Kapustin Yar cosmodrome. This mission was successful and after it five more launches took place with different dogs.

Another series of launches took place in 1954-1956. The purpose of these missions was to test spacesuits in conditions of depressurization of the ship. The dog was sent to a height of one hundred and ten kilometers. Most of the animals tolerated the load well, but in subsequent tests, five out of twelve dogs died.

In 1957, animals were launched into orbit for the first time. This was the year of a breakthrough in astronautics. The very first dogs in space had to experience conditions of prolonged weightlessness, temperature changes and overloads during launch. The first cosmonaut was destined to be a dog named Laika. She liked her exemplary behavior and pleasant appearance. The dog made four orbits around the earth and unfortunately died due to a malfunction in the thermoregulation system. However, Laika still had to die, since the launch was designed to only go one way.

Belka and Strelka

The next step was to launch the animals on the lander. The dogs Belka and Strelka, together with several dozen mice and two rats, became the first to make a successful flight in space and return to Earth. August 19, 1960 is actually the date of the first flight into space with a successful outcome for the test animals. This was a big step towards space exploration, because the information collected during the flight became invaluable material for further research.

Other animals

However, besides dogs, other animals have also been sent into space. In particular, monkeys took part in suborbital and orbital flights, as they are the closest in physiology to humans. In the United States, the first monkey was launched into space around 1948. In France, a monkey was sent into space in 1967. In the USSR, monkeys were used for launches into orbit in 1983 and 1996. In the first launches, mortality among monkeys was quite high.

Felicette the cat

In addition, cats were used for space travel. The first suborbital astronaut in France was a cat named Felix. But the first orbital flight was made by a cat named Felicette. This happened on October 18, 1963. It is interesting to note that Felix the cat was initially appointed as the main candidate for this flight, but shortly before the start he ran away and had to look for a replacement. Felicette the cat was launched into space from the Sahara Desert. The rocket rose to a height of two hundred kilometers, after which the capsule with the cat separated and went back behind the Earth by parachute.

Many people know the song of the Zemlyane group – “Grass near the House”. I first heard it in the cartoon “Well, wait a minute!” Since then, I became interested in space topics, found an encyclopedia at home about space, about the first manned flights into orbit, to the Moon, and began to study. To be honest, I was very fascinated by space, there was a time when I even wanted to become an astronaut. So, now there are a lot of rumors about who was the first cosmonaut, I will try to explain everything in detail.

The very first astronaut in the world

You begin to feel proud that it was our Soviet man, Yuri Alekseevich Gagarin, who was the very first to visit the frightening space. It was in April, the 12th of 1961. On Vostok 1, in 1961, Gagarin made only one revolution around the Earth. Its duration was 108 minutes, of which 89 were spent in orbit. The speed of the ship at that time was insane - 18 thousand miles per hour. The cosmonaut recorded data about his flight in a journal and wrote everything down in detail. The date of the first flight into space is celebrated all over the world, and the holiday is called “Cosmonautics Day”.

First moon landing

The Moon is a satellite of the Earth and the closest celestial body to us. On September 13, 1959, the first robotic vehicle set foot on the moon. 10 years later, the first person stepped onto it. On July 16, 1969, Apollo 11 launched from Earth. The first person to set foot on our satellite was Neil Armstrong, the captain of the ship. The official date is July 21, 1969. The astronauts spent 2 hours and 31 minutes on the Moon. Here are the results of the expedition:

• the US flag was planted on the moon;
• many physical experiments were carried out;
• over 21 kg of lunar soil was extracted;
• scientific instruments were placed.

First woman in space

In 1963, on June 16, half past one, the USSR launched Vostok-6 into orbit. The pilot of the ship was Valentina Vladimirovna Tereshkova. She was the first woman to fly into space. Moreover, Tereshkova is still the woman who went into space alone. To this day, her act cannot be repeated.

Here, in fact, I talked about the first cosmonauts and expeditions.

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Since childhood, I have been fond of intellectual games, we often “act out” questions on space topics, so I involuntarily became interested. From time immemorial, people have sought to find out what space is and what happens there. Every culture has legends about people who took to the skies and became “astronauts.” There was even one Chinese ruler who installed hundreds of rockets on his throne and tried to conquer space. Obviously he failed. And for the whole world, the first cosmonaut is Yuri Alekseevich Gagarin.

Space Age

After the end of World War II, the former allies entered the Cold War and the flight of a man of his nation into space would become an important argument in disputes on the world stage. The USSR took the first step by launching the first artificial Earth satellite in 1959, and in 1957 by launching Laika, the first dog in space, into Earth orbit.
After this, citizens of the USSR will be the first people in outer space, the first female cosmonaut will join the crew, but the Moon will still remain out of reach.

Life path of the first cosmonaut

• Born in the Gzhatsky district of the Western Region of the RSFSR (currently Smolensk region) on March 9, 1934.
• I went to school in my native village of Klushino, but due to the outbreak of the Second World War I could not
  get an education immediately, and the tragic fate of relatives who were taken away by the occupiers became the reason why Yuri Alekseevich never remembered the war years.
• since 1954 became actively involved in aviation, and even when there was a question about
  expelled due to problems with landing, he proved that “he cannot live without the sky”, having coped with all the difficulties.

Space is waiting

In 1959, when the selection of candidates for the first cosmonauts began, Yuri Gagarin also submitted his application for participation. She was approved because the Hero had developed leadership qualities, attentiveness, was very polite, but at the same time was always ready to defend his point of view if he considered it correct. In addition, the experience of flying jets was excellent physical training and a base for space flight.
So, having passed all the other contestants (according to rumors, the decisive factor was a memorable smile), on March 23, 1961, Yu.A. Gagarin becomes the crew commander, and already on April 12, 1961 he goes down in history as the first person to be in Earth orbit.
After this, there will be worldwide popularity, receptions with the heads of many countries, but, unfortunately, a sudden and tragic death at the age of 34.

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My childhood was spent in a small town, and I studied in a very ordinary school. But in this educational institution they always treated Cosmonautics Day with special trepidation. The whole school was preparing a festive concert, and at 9:07 - the time of takeoff of the first cosmonaut - they rang a triple bell. Since then, the first astronaut on Earth has remained my idol.

Who was the first space explorer?

Yuri Alekseevich Gagarin was born in 1934. And at the time of the flight he was 27 years old. Before that, he spent several years preparing for the flight with other pilots. These also included:

• German Titov;
• Alexey Leonov;
• Pavel Belyaev.

An interesting fact is that two reached the final selection - Gagarin and Titov. According to legend, it was Yuri Alekseevich’s beautiful and euphonious name that allowed him to become the first. And the decision about who would be the main astronaut on the planet was made personally by Khrushchev.

The Vostok spacecraft took off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome on April 12, 1961 and made one orbit around the planet in 108 minutes, covering 41 thousand kilometers. It is noteworthy that even before media reports, radio amateurs who caught a strange signal from orbit knew about the flight. But they were not destined to find out the name of the hero. During negotiations with the Mission Control Center, it was hidden behind the code word “Cedar”.

Chief space designer

But don't underestimate the one who built the first rocket. During the years of space exploration, it was carefully hidden. But now we can be fully proud of Sergei Pavlovich Korolev, the founder of practical astronautics.

Despite many problems, prison, this man persistently walked towards his goal. He was able, at a time when there were no computers yet, and all calculations were done manually, to build a ship that made a complex flight automatically without a single error, which is not always possible even today!

So, Yuri Gagarin became the first cosmonaut on Earth, and Sergei Korolev was the first builder of spaceships. And these are the people of whom every earthling should be proud, since they paved the way to space, paved the way to the future!

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Even before entering school, all of us (Soviet children) knew who flew into space first. It was Yuri Gagarin. When the Union collapsed, various “evidence” began to come to light that the first cosmonaut was a completely different person. I don’t know who to believe, but I (and not only me) continue to consider Gagarin the first cosmonaut.

Why was Gagarin the first cosmonaut?

In the Soviet Union, just anyone was “not appointed” to such “responsible jobs.” The first had to be a person of the Russian type (pleasant Slavic appearance), with a Soviet worldview, morally stable, educated and in good health. Yu. A. Gagarin fit these criteria very well. And he received the profession of a pilot at our Orenburg Flight School (closed, unfortunately).

After his first (and only) flight, Yuri Alekseevich became a world celebrity; he was welcome everywhere: in any city of the Union, and in other countries. Gagarin was awarded many titles and awards. He was loved and recognized. It is a pity that after his flight into space he lived only 7 years.

Who else was considered the first astronauts?

Events such as the first flight into space cannot but be surrounded by all sorts of secrets and myths. Even in those days, the Americans assumed that Gagarin was not the first cosmonaut and not even the second. Those who supposedly flew into space before him did not return alive, and then it should not have been that way - shame on the country! And the following were named as previous cosmonauts:

• Victor Ilyushin;
• Alexandra Belokoneva;
• Evgenia Kiryushina;
• Valentina Bondarenko and others.

I don’t want to believe in all these speculations; I will always consider Gagarin the first cosmonaut, a hero and one of the best representatives of our country. In connection with his tragic death, for the first time, general mourning was declared in the country not for the head of state.

Gagarin remains a man of peace. He is revered as the first cosmonaut not only in our country. Streets and settlements are still named after him. And how many monuments to Gagarin have been erected around the world?

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In my childhood, all the good girls, when they grew up, dreamed of working as teachers or doctors, and the boys dreamed of working as police officers or exploring the expanses of space. Naturally, there were much more of the latter. We all knew that the twelfth of April is Cosmonautics Day, and Gagarin is the idol of the Soviet (and not only) people, who conquered the distances of space. We built rockets and imitated our hero in everything. We grew up, perestroika burst into our measured life, and it turned out that everything was not so simple.

Which living creature was the first to fly into space?

Not all flights went smoothly; many of the animals died. Belka and Strelka were the first to return safely to Earth. Only after this was the decision made about human space flight.

First cosmonaut

Three thousand absolutely healthy candidates were selected for the role of the first cosmonaut. Six of them were selected. Preparations began in earnest. The situation was heating up, as the Americans were also not asleep.

And then the hour came, twenty-seven-year-old Yuri Alekseevich Gagarin flew into space. The flight lasted one hundred and eight minutes, of which he spent eighty-nine in orbit. Everything went well. The Soviet people rejoiced. But the West still believes that Gagarin was not the first; there is a version that his flight was staged. They name Alexander Belokonev, Vladimir Ilyushin, Sergei Shiborin, Andrei Mitkov, Alexei Ledovsky. In 2011, for the fiftieth anniversary of the first flight, many archives were declassified. From them it became clear that before Gagarin, only dummies, jokingly named Ivan Ivanovich, flew into space.

Intensive space exploration began only in the last century. For centuries, people have studied the stars and the celestial sphere, but only in the 20th century did scientific and technological progress make it possible not only to enter Earth’s orbit, but also to find themselves in outer space and set foot on the Moon. Who was the first to fly into space? Below we will answer this and other questions related to such flights.

The first living creature in outer space

Many are sure that the famous mongrels Belka and Strelka were the first to go into space. However, this is not the case. Before their flight, various experiments were carried out for at least 10 years, during which various animals were released into low-Earth orbit. The very first were squirrel monkeys, which were launched by the Americans in 1949.

Four-legged friends - pioneers of space flights

It was only in 1951 that experiments began on our four-legged friends. The first dogs to fly into space were the mongrels Dezik and Tsygan. They were launched on high-altitude rockets to an altitude of 450 km. They returned successfully. The legendary Laika made its first real orbital flight on the Sputnik 2 rocket in 1957. The dog died from stress and overheating a short time after takeoff. In any case, Laika was doomed to death, since the design of the ship did not allow for a return to Earth.

And only in 1960, the well-known Belka and Strelka ascended into space on the Sputnik 5 rocket. They survived the flight successfully and returned home safe and sound. It became clear that the first manned flight into space was just around the corner. Soviet and American scientists worked hard in this direction.

Who was the first to fly into space?

Any schoolchild can answer this question. Everyone knows who was the first to fly into space. The name of this hero is Yuri Gagarin. The Vostok space rocket launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on April 12, 1961. During takeoff, Gagarin exclaimed: “Let's go!” He was calm; the archive contains information that the sensors recorded a pulse of 64 beats per minute. Already in orbit, Yuri was surprised: “The Earth is blue! How beautiful!”

It orbited the planet in 108 minutes and returned successfully, landing in a field near the village of Engels, Saratov region. Gagarin recalled that the first to see him in an orange spacesuit were a peasant woman and her daughter and they were scared...

The news spread all over the world that the first manned flight into space had taken place. This great event is the starting point of human exploration of outer space.

Biography

Yuri Gagarin was born on March 9, 1934 in the Smolensk region. His father and mother were simple collective farmers from the village of Klushino.

In June 1951, Yura graduated with honors from the Lyubertsy vocational school. In the same year he graduated from the Lyubertsy School of Working Youth.

In 1955, he graduated from the Saratov Industrial College with top marks and graduated from the Saratov Aero Club. In the same year he was drafted into the ranks of the Soviet Army. He served as a fighter pilot in an aviation regiment.

In 1957 he graduated from the First Chkalov Aviation School named after. Voroshilov (Orenburg) with the qualification of a first-class military pilot. Yu. A. Gagarin was a student of the famous test pilot Akbulatov.

On March 3, 1960, by order of the Commander-in-Chief of the USSR Air Force, he was enrolled in the cosmonaut corps. A year later he made his famous flight. After him, Yu. A. Gagarin became a living legend, received recognition throughout the world, was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union and awarded many medals. Yuri was declared an honorary citizen of various cities.

The personal life of the one who first flew into space also turned out well. In 1957, Gagarin got married and then had two daughters.

However, on March 27, 1968, at the age of 34, the first person to fly into space tragically died while testing the MiG-15 fighter. At that time the whole country was grieving!

The weaker sex is not far behind

The first woman to conquer space was also a citizen of the USSR. This is Valentina Tereshkova. She was born on March 6, 1937 in a simple family. She graduated from school, worked at a factory, and then as a weaver at a mill. At the same time, she studied in absentia at the Light Industry College. Her hobby is parachuting, in which she was one of the best in the women's team. In 1960, Valentina became secretary of the Komsomol committee.

When Academician Korolev came up with the idea of ​​sending a woman into low-Earth orbit, a competition for applicants was announced. The woman had to be no older than 30 years old, no taller than 170 cm and weigh no more than 70 kg, be in good health, be politically literate, morally stable and have experience in skydiving. Valentina immediately applied. She and 4 other applicants were selected among several hundred applicants.

Tereshkova's difficult flight

Tedious training began, which lasted several months. In November 1962, Tereshkova and the other candidates successfully passed the exams. However, the choice fell on Valentina, although according to the doctors’ findings, she was fifth on the list. But political factors became decisive - the woman was from a simple family, the secretary of a Komsomol cell. A big plus was the fact that she knew how to speak well at meetings (her experience as a Komsomol member affected her). After all, if the flight was successful, Tereshkova was expected to travel internationally and meet with Western journalists. According to contemporaries, Khrushchov personally insisted on Valentina’s candidacy.

The historic launch took place on June 16, 1963 on a Vostok-6 rocket from the Baikonur cosmodrome. The flight into space lasted three days, and during this time emergency situations arose. The most serious and threatening was Tereshkova’s temporary disorientation, as a result of which she directed the spacecraft in the other direction, moving away at great speed from the planned flight path into outer space. The observers got their bearings in time and switched the rocket to automatic control mode, returning it to the correct route. V.V. Tereshkova, the first female cosmonaut on the planet, said many years later that she physically felt very bad. Indeed, immediately after landing she was in bad shape and was urgently hospitalized. However, after a couple of days, she accepted congratulations with a smile.

For her heroic flight into space, Valentina Tereshkova was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union and other honors.

Other victories of the USSR

The Americans were shocked by the news of Gagarin's flight, and then by the news of Tereshkova's orbital flight. The United States launched the first man - Alan Shepard - into space a month after the USSR, but this was not a real space flight, only a suborbital one. Only on February 20, 1962, the American Mercury 6 rocket made its first real orbital flight with astronaut John Glenn on board.

In the space race between the USA and the USSR, the country of the Soviets took almost all the prizes:

• The world's first satellite was launched by the USSR on October 4, 1957.
• Gagarin is the first cosmonaut on the planet.
• Tereshkova is a pioneer woman in astronautics.
• Alexey Leonov, a citizen of the USSR, carried out the first spacewalk on March 18, 1965 from the Voskhod-2 spacecraft.
• Soviet citizen Svetlana Savitskaya was the first woman who dared to go into outer space on July 25, 1984.
• During 16 spacewalks, Anatoly Solovyov spent a total of a record 82 hours and 20 minutes in airless space.

The United States took revenge when it was the first to land its astronauts Neil Armstrong and Alvin Aldrin on the Moon. Although many argue that it was a big scam, and so far no man has set foot on the moon.

• 1964 - the first civilians were sent into space - doctor Boris Egorov and doctor of technical sciences Konstantin Feoktistov.
• 1978 - Czechoslovakia joined the ranks of countries conquering space, sending cosmonaut V. Remek into the vacuum of space.
• 1985 - the first politicians in space are Senator Edwin Garn and Prince Al-Saud of Saudi Arabia.
• 1990 - Japanese journalist Toyohiro Akiyama went into outer space.

Tourist space

The idea of ​​space tourism was put forward back in 1967. The first official report on this topic was heard in 1986 at the International Congress on Astronautics. In the same year, the first tourist was supposed to fly into space - American Christy McAuliffe, a teacher who won this prize in the competition. However, she died during the launch of the Challenger shuttle, which became the reason for the state ban on non-professional flights into space.

The idea of ​​such tourism did not die, but continued to develop at an unprecedented speed. Already in 2001, Russia was able to send the first tourist into space - American Dennis Tito, who paid $20 million for the flight. This mission caused great dissatisfaction with NASA. However, in 2002, again, Russia sent a second tourist into space - Mark Shuttleworth, who also paid $20 million for the flight.

Tito and Shuttleworth are the first people to fly into space as tourists. To date, 8 travelers have already visited outer space. The cost of the flight increased to $40 million. An additional service was announced for 15 million - a spacewalk.

The United States is actively working to create state-of-the-art safe shuttles for space tourism and promises to reduce the cost of flights to $50,000 by 2020, which will make it possible to send up to 500 tourists a year to the International Space Station.

For each anniversary of Yuri Gagarin’s historic flight, “exposing” articles appear again and again in newspapers and the Internet, claiming that Gagarin was not the first cosmonaut. Usually they come down to a list of rumors about pilots who allegedly flew into space before Gagarin, but died there, which is why their names are classified. Where did the myth about the victims of Soviet cosmonautics come from?

Venusian phantom

For the first time, the Soviet Union was accused of keeping silent about the deaths of cosmonauts even before Gagarin’s flight. In the diary of the then head of the cosmonaut corps, Nikolai Kamanin, there is an entry dated February 12, 1961:

After the launch of a rocket to Venus on February 4, many in the West believe that we failed to launch a man into space; the Italians even allegedly “heard” groans and intermittent Russian speech. These are all completely baseless fabrications. In fact, we are working hard to guarantee the astronaut's landing. From my point of view, we are even overly cautious in this. There will never be a complete guarantee of a successful first flight into space, and some of the risk is justified by the greatness of the task...

The launch on February 4, 1961 was indeed unsuccessful, but there was no person on board. This was the first attempt to send a research apparatus to Venus. The Molniya launch vehicle launched it into space, but due to a malfunction, the device remained in low-Earth orbit. The Soviet government, according to established tradition, did not officially acknowledge the failure, and in a TASS message to the whole world it was announced that the heavy satellite had been successfully launched and that the scientific and technical tasks had been completed.

In general, it was the unjustified in many cases veil of secrecy surrounding the domestic space program that gave rise to a lot of rumors and speculation - and not only among Western journalists, but also among Soviet citizens.

Birth of a myth

However, let's return to Western journalists. The first message dedicated to the “victims of red space” was published by the Italians: in December 1959, the Continental agency disseminated a statement by a certain high-ranking Czech communist that the USSR had been launching manned ballistic missiles since 1957. One of the pilots, named Alexey Ledovsky, allegedly died on November 1, 1957 during such a suborbital launch. Developing the topic, journalists mentioned three more “dead cosmonauts”: Sergei Shiborin (allegedly died on February 1, 1958), Andrei Mitkov (allegedly died on January 1, 1959) and Maria Gromova (allegedly died on June 1, 1959). At the same time, the female pilot allegedly crashed not in a rocket, but while testing a prototype of an orbital aircraft with a rocket engine.

During the same period, rocket pioneer Hermann Oberth said that he had heard about a manned suborbital launch that allegedly took place at the Kapustin Yar test site in early 1958 and ended in the death of the pilot. However, Obert emphasized that he knew about the “cosmic catastrophe” from hearsay and could not vouch for the veracity of the information.

And the Continental agency produced sensation after sensation. Italian correspondents talked either about the “lunar ship” that exploded on the launch pad of the mythical Siberian cosmodrome “Sputnikgrad”, or about the upcoming secret flight of two Soviet pilots... Since none of the sensations was confirmed, they stopped trusting Continental’s reports. But the “rumor factory” soon gained followers.

In October 1959, the Ogonyok magazine published an article about aircraft testers. Among them were mentioned Alexey Belokonev, Ivan Kachur, Alexey Grachev. The newspaper "Evening Moscow" in a note on a similar topic spoke about Gennady Mikhailov and Gennady Zavodovsky. For some reason, a journalist from the Associated Press, which republished the materials, decided that the photographs in these articles depicted future Soviet cosmonauts. Since their names subsequently did not appear in TASS space reports, the “logical” conclusion was drawn: these five died during early unsuccessful launches.

The real Belokonov, Grachev and Kachur in photographs from Ogonyok (Photo: Dmitry Baltermants)

Moreover, the wild imagination of the journalists ran so wild that for each of the pilots they came up with a separate detailed version of their death. Thus, after the launch of the first satellite 1KP, the Vostok prototype, on May 15, 1960, Western media claimed that the pilot Zavodovsky was on board. He allegedly died due to a malfunction in the orientation system, which put the ship into a higher orbit.

The mythical cosmonaut Kachur found his death on September 27, 1960 during the unsuccessful launch of another satellite, the orbital flight of which was supposed to take place during Nikita Khrushchev’s visit to New York. According to rumors, the Soviet leader had with him a model of a manned spacecraft, which he was supposed to triumphantly show to Western journalists if the flight was successful.

It must be admitted that the Soviet diplomatic services themselves created an unhealthy atmosphere of anticipation for some high-profile event, hinting to American journalists that “something amazing” would happen on September 27. Intelligence reported that spacecraft tracking ships had taken up positions in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. A Soviet sailor who escaped during the same period confirmed that a space launch was being prepared. But, after knocking his fist at the UN General Assembly, on October 13, 1960, Nikita Khrushchev left America. There have been no official statements from TASS. Of course, journalists immediately trumpeted to the whole world about a new disaster that befell the Soviet space program.

Many years later it became known that a launch was actually planned for those days. But it was not a person who was supposed to fly into space, but 1M - the first apparatus for studying Mars. However, attempts to send two identical devices into at least low-Earth orbit, undertaken on October 10 and 14, ended ingloriously: in both cases, the launch was disrupted due to the failure of the Molniya launch vehicle.

The next “victim of the space race,” pilot Grachev, died, according to Western media, on September 15, 1961. The same rumor factory “Continental” told about his terrible death. In February 1962, the agency said that in September 1961, two Soviet cosmonauts were launched on the Vostok-3 spacecraft: supposedly this launch was timed to coincide with the XXII Congress of the CPSU and during the flight the ship was supposed to fly around the Moon, but instead “ lost in the depths of the Universe."

Cosmonaut Ilyushin?

Vladimir Sergeevich Ilyushin, the son of a famous aircraft designer, is another victim of sensation hunters. In 1960, he had an accident and was declared another “Dogagarin cosmonaut.” Proponents of the conspiracy theory believe that Ilyushin was forbidden to talk about his flight into space until the end of his life, because he allegedly... landed on Chinese territory. It is impossible to think of a more ridiculous reason to abandon space primacy. Moreover, Ilyushin not only did not die - he lived until 2010 and rose to the rank of major general.

Voices in space

The grave of tester Zavodovsky. As can be seen from the dates, the “deceased cosmonaut” died in the 21st century in retirement

The failed launch of the Venusian station on February 4, 1961 gave rise to a new wave of rumors. Then the radio amateur brothers Achille and Giovanni Iudica-Cordiglia first made their presence known and built their own radio station near Turin. They claimed to have intercepted telemetry radio signals of a human heartbeat and the ragged breathing of a dying Soviet cosmonaut. This “incident” is associated with the name of the mythical cosmonaut Mikhailov, who allegedly died in orbit.

But that's not all! In 1965, brother radio amateurs told an Italian newspaper about three strange broadcasts from space. The first interception allegedly took place on November 28, 1960: radio amateurs heard the sounds of Morse code and a request for help in English. On May 16, 1961, they managed to catch the confused speech of a Russian female cosmonaut on air. The third radio intercept, on May 15, 1962, recorded conversations between three Russian pilots (two men and a woman) dying in space. In the recording, through the crackling noise, the following phrases could be discerned: “Conditions are getting worse... why aren’t you responding?.. the speed is falling... the world will never know about us...”

Impressive, isn't it? In order to finally assure the reader of the authenticity of the “facts” presented, the Italian newspaper names the names of the victims. The first “victim” on this list was pilot Alexey Grachev. The female cosmonaut's name was Lyudmila. Among the trio who died in 1962, for some reason only one is named - Alexei Belokonev, about whom Ogonyok wrote.

In the same year, the “sensational” information from the Italian newspaper was republished by the American magazine Reader’s Digest. Four years later, the book Autopsy of an Astronaut, written by pathologist Sam Stonebreaker, was published. In it, the author claimed that he flew into space on Gemini 12 to obtain tissue samples from dead Soviet pilots resting in the ship in orbit since May 1962.

That's who really flew into space before Gagarin - the dummy Ivan Ivanovich. To prevent him from being mistaken for the corpse of an astronaut, a “Model” sign was inserted into the helmet.

As for the article in Ogonyok, which gave rise not even to a myth, but to an entire mythology, the famous journalist Yaroslav Golovanov, who investigated the stories of the “Dogagarin cosmonauts,” interviewed Alexei Timofeevich Belokonov himself (that’s right, and not Belokonev, as is customary among myth-makers ). This is what the tester, who was buried by Western rumor factories a long time ago, said.

In the 50s, long before Gagarin’s flight, my comrades and I, then very young guys - Lyosha Grachev, Gennady Zavodovsky, Gennady Mikhailov, Vanya Kachur, were engaged in ground testing of aviation equipment and anti-g flight suits. By the way, at the same time, spacesuits for dogs that flew on high-altitude rockets were created and tested in a nearby laboratory. The work was difficult, but very interesting.

One day a correspondent from the magazine “Ogonyok” came to us, walked around the laboratories, talked with us, and then published a report “On the threshold of great heights” with photographs (see “Ogonyok” No. 42, 1959 - Ya. G.). The main character of this report was Lyosha Grachev, but they also told about me how I experienced the effects of explosive decompression. Ivan Kachur was also mentioned. They also talked about the altitude record of Vladimir Ilyushin, who then rose to 28,852 meters. The journalist slightly distorted my last name and called me not Belokonov, but Belokonev.

Well, that's where it all started. The New York Journal-American published a fake that my comrades and I flew into space before Gagarin and died. The editor-in-chief of Izvestia, Alexey Ivanovich Adzhubey, invited Mikhailov and me to the editorial office. We arrived, talked with journalists, and took pictures of us. This photograph was published in Izvestia (May 27, 1963 - Ya. G.) next to Adzhubey’s open letter to Mr. Hirst Jr., the owner of the magazine that sent us into space and buried us.

We ourselves published a response to the Americans to their article in the newspaper “Krasnaya Zvezda” (May 29, 1963 - Ya. G.), in which we honestly wrote: “We did not have the chance to rise into extra-atmospheric space. We are testing various equipment for high-altitude flights.” No one died during these tests. Gennady Zavodovsky lived in Moscow, worked as a driver, did not get into Izvestia at that time - he was on a flight, Lyosha Grachev worked in Ryazan at the factory of calculating and analytical machines, Ivan Kachur lived in the town of Pechenezhin in the Ivano-Frankivsk region, worked as a teacher in an orphanage . Later, I participated in tests related to life support systems for astronauts, and even after Gagarin’s flight I was awarded the medal “For Labor Valor” for this work...

Forgotten heroes

So, the list of mythical astronauts still included people who worked for the space program, but their real lives were noticeably different from journalistic fantasies.

In addition to the four testing friends, a very real figure was, for example, Pyotr Dolgov. Western media declared him an astronaut who died during the orbital satellite disaster on October 10, 1960 (in fact, on that day they tried to launch the 1M No. 1 apparatus). Colonel Pyotr Dolgov died much later: on November 1, 1962, during a parachute jump from a stratospheric balloon raised to a height of 25.5 kilometers. When Dolgov left the stratospheric balloon, the face shield of the pressure helmet cracked - death occurred instantly.

Record-breaking skydiver Pyotr Dolgov really died, but space has nothing to do with it

Pilot Anokhin flew on a rocket plane, not on a spaceship

I present all these details here not to amaze the reader or make him doubt the history of astronautics as we know it. A review of rumors and mythical episodes is needed to show how detrimental the policy of silence and disinformation was to the reputation of the domestic space program. The reluctance and inability to admit mistakes played a cruel joke on us: even when TASS made a completely truthful statement, they refused to believe it, looking for contradictions or trying to read “between the lines.”

Sometimes the test pilots themselves contribute to the spread of rumors. Shortly before his death in 1986, the outstanding Soviet pilot Sergei Anokhin said in an interview: “I flew on a rocket.” Journalists immediately asked the question: when and on what rocket could he fly? They remembered that from the mid-1960s Anokhin headed the department in Sergei Korolev’s bureau that trained “civilian” cosmonauts for flights. And he himself was part of the detachment. Is it because he already had experience “flying on a rocket” in the early 1950s?.. But in fact, long before working at the bureau, Anokhin participated in testing a rocket plane and a cruise missile and, most likely, had this in mind.

James Oberg, one of the debunkers of this "conspiracy theory"

American space technology expert James Oberg undertook to systematize all the rumors about Soviet cosmonautics that had appeared in the Western press since the mid-1960s. Based on the collected material, he wrote the article “Phantoms of Space,” first published in 1975. Now this work has been supplemented with new materials and has gone through many reprints. Having a reputation as a staunch anti-Soviet, Oberg is nevertheless very scrupulous in selecting information concerning the secrets of the Soviet space program, and is very careful in drawing conclusions. Without denying that there are many “blank spots” in the history of Soviet cosmonautics, he concludes that stories about cosmonauts dying during launch or in orbit are implausible. All these are the fruits of fantasy, heated by the regime of secrecy.

Reality vs Myth

Soviet cosmonauts really died - both before and after Gagarin’s flight. Let us remember them and bow our heads to Valentin Bondarenko (died on Earth, without ever flying into space, on March 23, 1961 due to a fire during testing), Vladimir Komarov (died on April 24, 1967 due to a disaster during the landing of the Soyuz spacecraft). 1"), Georgy Dobrovolsky, Vladislav Volkov and Viktor Patsayev (died on June 30, 1971 due to depressurization of the Soyuz-11 descent module). However, in the history of Soviet cosmonautics there was and is not secret corpses.

For cynics who do not believe documents, memoirs and diaries, but rely on “logic” and “common sense,” I will give a cynical but absolutely logical argument. In the conditions of the space race, it did not matter whether the first cosmonaut returned to Earth or not - the main thing was to declare his priority. Therefore, if there had been pilot Zavodovsky on the 1KP satellite, as irresponsible authors are trying to assure us, it would be Zavodovsky who would have been declared the first cosmonaut of the planet. Of course, the whole world would mourn him, but the Soviet man would still be the first to be in space, and this is the main thing.

The readiness of the USSR government for any outcome of the flight is confirmed by declassified documents. I will give here a fragment of a note sent to the CPSU Central Committee on March 30, 1961 on behalf of those involved in the space program:

We consider it appropriate to publish the first TASS message immediately after the satellite enters orbit for the following reasons:

a) if necessary, this will facilitate the rapid organization of rescue;
b) this will prevent any foreign state from declaring an astronaut a spy for military purposes...

Here is another document on the same topic. On April 3, the CPSU Central Committee adopted a resolution “On the launch of a spacecraft-satellite”:

1. Approve the proposal<…>about the launch of the Vostok-3 spacecraft with an astronaut on board.
2. Approve the draft TASS report on the launch of a spacecraft with an astronaut on board an Earth satellite and grant the Launch Commission the right, if necessary, to make clarifications on the launch results, and the USSR Council of Ministers Commission on Military-Industrial Issues to publish it.

They did it as they decided. The TASS report dedicated to the first manned flight into space sounded even before Gagarin returned to Earth. He could have died during the descent - and April 12 would still have become Cosmonautics Day.

Stars and other celestial bodies have attracted man since ancient times. And only in the last century the level of development of technical thought allowed man and other living beings to get a little closer to the stars and reach near-Earth space. Who was the first to fly into space? What living creatures became space pioneers? When was the first woman in Earth orbit? Which astronaut was the first to go into outer space? And when did man first set foot on the moon?

First cosmonaut

The first person to fly into space was Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin. On April 12, 1961, on the Vostok spacecraft launched from the Baikonur cosmodrome, he flew in orbit around the Earth, spending 108 minutes in space, and successfully returned to his home planet. This landmark event marked the beginning of the space age, although space exploration began somewhat earlier.

Space dogs

Our four-legged friends became the pioneers of space among animals. The first dogs to fly into space on July 22, 1951 and return alive to Earth were Desik and Gypsy. They traveled from the Kapustin Yar test site on a Soviet R-1V rocket. Their flight was suborbital - the rocket reached outer space, but entering Earth's orbit and its flight around the planet was not planned. But the heroic dog Laika made the first real orbital space flight on November 3, 1957. She circled the Earth several times on the Soviet ship Sputnik 2 and died in space from overheating and stress 5-7 hours after launch. She was expected to live in orbit for a week, although Laika's return to Earth was not included in the ship's design. Almost 3 years later - on August 19-20, 1960, on the Soviet ship Sputnik-5, the legendary dogs Belka and Strelka not only flew in orbit, but also returned home.

The first astronauts

American rocket scientists experimented with monkeys, the first of which, Sam, ended up in orbit on December 4, 1959. And the United States launched a man into space for the first time almost a month after Yuri Gagarin, and even then on a suborbital flight. It was Alan Shepard on Mercury 3. And only on February 20, 1962, John Glenn was the first American to make the first orbital flight on Mercury 6.

The weaker sex in space

The first woman to fly into space was USSR citizen Valentina Tereshkova. She made her historic flight on June 16, 1963 on Vostok-6. By the way, only two decades later the first American, Sally Ride, was in orbit. Meanwhile, the first representative of the fairer sex in outer space was also the Soviet female cosmonaut Svetlana Savitskaya, who took this step on July 25, 1984.

Space Race

In general, the first spacewalk in history was made on March 18, 1965 by the famous Soviet cosmonaut Alexei Leonov. This was another victory for the Soviet cosmonautics in the space race with the Americans. True, America managed to succeed in the lunar program - it was US astronauts Neil Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin who were the first to land on the Earth's satellite on Apollo 11.

Cosmic calendar: only the first ones

And now briefly about who was the first to fly into space in other categories:

1963 - the first cat Felisseta made a suborbital flight

1964 - the first civilian specialist (Konstantin Feoktistov) and doctor (Boris Egorov) in space

1978 - the first cosmonaut not from the USSR or the USA - Vladimir Remek (Czechoslovakia)

1985 - first American Senator Edwin Garn and Saudi Prince Sultan Al-Saud in space

1986 - first American astronaut-Congressman William Nelson

1990 - the first commercial flight into space was made by the Japanese Toyohiro Akiyama. He also became the first journalist in orbit. In the same year, the first living creature flew into space even before birth - on the Mir space station, a quail chick hatched from an egg for the first time.

2001 - the first space tourist, American Dennis Tito, paid $20 million for a week in space.

2008 - the son of cosmonaut Sergei Volkov flew into space for the first time