This year marks 50 years since Yuri Gagarin climbed into his space ship and was launched into space.
Gagarin, who was born in the Russian village of Klushino in 1934, became an international celebrity after his trip into space.
Now, let's visit the Youri Gagarin astronaut training centre.
Originated as a secret Air Force facility, Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center has become Russia's only « school of cosmonauts ». Cleverly hidden in the evergreen woods northeast of Moscow, the center was identified in the Soviet press as Zvezdny Gorodok, translated as Star City or Starry Town. Of course, it would be foolish to try to find "Star City" on Russian maps... but with Google you can find where it is !
Since his death (doubts are remaining and the documents are always classified as secret), the Cosmonaut Training Centre has been renamed in his honour while the Russian village of Gzhatsk, which was adjacent to his home town, was also renamed Gagarin.
On April 12th, 1961, Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first human in space, making a 108-minute orbital flight in his Vostok 1 spacecraft.
If you wish to watch a film about this historical event then select one of those URLs :
Mercury astronaut Alan Shepard became the first American in space less than a month later ... at that time the competition between US and USSR was very strong.
| The first cooperative human space flight project between the United States and the Soviet Union took place in 1975. The Apollo-Soyuz Test Project was designed to test the compatibility of rendezvous and docking systems for American and Soviet spacecraft and to open the way for future joint manned flights. Since 1993, the U.S. and Russia have worked together on a number of other space flight projects. The Space Shuttle began visiting the Russian Mir space station in 1994, and in 1995 Norm Thagard became the first U.S. astronaut to take up residency on Mir. Seven U.S. astronauts served with their Russian counterparts aboard the orbiting Mir laboratory from 1995 to 1998. The experience gained from the Mir cooperative effort, as well as lessons learned, paved the way for the International Space Station. In-orbit construction on the Station began in November 1998, and it has been staffed non-stop with international crews since November 2000. The first Station crew, made up of U.S. commander Bill Shepherd and cosmonauts Yuri Gidzenko and Sergei Krikalev, was launched on board a Russian Soyuz spacecraft. The crew returned to Earth on the Space Shuttle Discovery in March 2001. |  |
Now, let's visit the Youri Gagarin astronaut training centre.
Origin of Star City :
The birth of the flight program in the USSR at the end of the 1950s required the creation of a specialized cosmonaut training facility. At the time, a special Air Force commission led by military physician Evgeny Karpov selected more than 200 fighter pilots suitable for further examination. In 1959, this group went through rigorous medical checkups at Central Research Military Aviation Hospital in Moscow. Selected 20 people made up the first group of Soviet cosmonauts. Initially, the group was housed at Frunze Central Airfield in Moscow. Nikolai Kamanin, a legendary Soviet Pilot and Polar Explorer was appointed as head of training for future cosmonauts. In the meantime, a special commission, chaired by Kamanin, was searching for a site for the permanent Cosmonaut Training Center.
The chosen location lay 40 kilometers from Moscow, near Chkalovskaya train station on the Yaroslav Railroad. A nearby airfield served as a major hub for some key government aircraft units. The official decision creating Cosmonaut Training Center was signed on January 11, 1960. Future cosmonauts and their family members moved in the new facility at the beginning of June 1960.
The residential area and Gagarin statue
The site consisted of two parts, the training facility and a small residential area for the military and civilian personnel serving the facility, as well as cosmonauts and their families.
Oasis of Socialism : During the Cold War, the Star City was the favorite showcase of the Soviet propaganda - cosmonauts were living in luxury apartment buildings and their wives shopping in stores, which looked like a dream to an ordinary Soviet housewife, exhausted by fruitless search for a decent piece of sausage or children' socks. Some cynical Russians joked that a happy Socialist society, which the Communist Party promised the Soviet people, was finally built ... in one single town !
With the disintegration of the USSR, the Star City had faced many of the problems that the rest of Russia struggled with for decades -- lack of government funds for infrastructure development and repair, as well as new challenges of transition to a free-market economy. Local stores lost their exclusive government suppliers and switched to market prices. Even cosmonauts seemed to look for new ways to complement their government pensions -- some asking $250 per interview from visiting foreign journalists. In the meantime, a row of brand-new cottages, which looked like they were transplanted from New Jersey, sprung up in the cozy corner of the town to house NASA astronauts and officials deployed in Star City to support Shuttle-Mir and ISS programs.
End of military control : By the turn of the 21st century, Russian Air Force apparently long lost interest in human space flight and finally managed to dump responsibility for the management and funding of Star City onto the Russian space agency, Roskosmos.
The visit of the training centre : it is possible but not so evident. Best is to join organized group, what we have done.
We start with old Spoutnik modules where we can see that the living area was small and comfort was minimal. We also can see food used in space, medical equipment and survival equipment when coming back on earth (such as gun if a bear is encountered in the toundra area).
In this building, the international space station looks big compared to the initial Spoutnik !
Astronauts are training in a huge pool that simulates the conditions of movement in space when wearing a scaphander.
Also Astronauts are training in a big centrifuge ... hopefully, we didn't test it !
And to finish the tour we had the chance to meet Zaletin astronaut who went twice in space and he answered to questions raised by participants (specially children who had many ...).
If you wish to know more details about Zaletin astronaut (Залётин, Сергей Викторович) : http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Залётин,_Сергей_Викторович (only in Russian)
If you wish to watch a short video extracted from Zaletin interview (translated in French) :
The birth of the flight program in the USSR at the end of the 1950s required the creation of a specialized cosmonaut training facility. At the time, a special Air Force commission led by military physician Evgeny Karpov selected more than 200 fighter pilots suitable for further examination. In 1959, this group went through rigorous medical checkups at Central Research Military Aviation Hospital in Moscow. Selected 20 people made up the first group of Soviet cosmonauts. Initially, the group was housed at Frunze Central Airfield in Moscow. Nikolai Kamanin, a legendary Soviet Pilot and Polar Explorer was appointed as head of training for future cosmonauts. In the meantime, a special commission, chaired by Kamanin, was searching for a site for the permanent Cosmonaut Training Center.
The chosen location lay 40 kilometers from Moscow, near Chkalovskaya train station on the Yaroslav Railroad. A nearby airfield served as a major hub for some key government aircraft units. The official decision creating Cosmonaut Training Center was signed on January 11, 1960. Future cosmonauts and their family members moved in the new facility at the beginning of June 1960.
The site consisted of two parts, the training facility and a small residential area for the military and civilian personnel serving the facility, as well as cosmonauts and their families.
Oasis of Socialism : During the Cold War, the Star City was the favorite showcase of the Soviet propaganda - cosmonauts were living in luxury apartment buildings and their wives shopping in stores, which looked like a dream to an ordinary Soviet housewife, exhausted by fruitless search for a decent piece of sausage or children' socks. Some cynical Russians joked that a happy Socialist society, which the Communist Party promised the Soviet people, was finally built ... in one single town !
End of military control : By the turn of the 21st century, Russian Air Force apparently long lost interest in human space flight and finally managed to dump responsibility for the management and funding of Star City onto the Russian space agency, Roskosmos.
The visit of the training centre : it is possible but not so evident. Best is to join organized group, what we have done.
We start with old Spoutnik modules where we can see that the living area was small and comfort was minimal. We also can see food used in space, medical equipment and survival equipment when coming back on earth (such as gun if a bear is encountered in the toundra area).
In this building, the international space station looks big compared to the initial Spoutnik !
Astronauts are training in a huge pool that simulates the conditions of movement in space when wearing a scaphander.
Also Astronauts are training in a big centrifuge ... hopefully, we didn't test it !
And to finish the tour we had the chance to meet Zaletin astronaut who went twice in space and he answered to questions raised by participants (specially children who had many ...).
If you wish to know more details about Zaletin astronaut (Залётин, Сергей Викторович) : http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Залётин,_Сергей_Викторович (only in Russian)
If you wish to watch a short video extracted from Zaletin interview (translated in French) :
No comments:
Post a Comment