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Was Yuri Gagarin the first man in space?
Soviet propaganda myth: Gagarin was not the first in space? / "Unsolved Mysteries"
According to one source, Yuri Gagarin was the second man in space, according to others - the fourth, and some claim even the twelfth. In the Guinness Book of Records for 1964, the first cosmonaut on Earth was listed as Victor Ilyushin. Other
It is in our days that data is being revealed about what preceded Gagarin’s famous flight and who preceded it. The flight of April 12, 1961 - is it another myth of Soviet propaganda or is it still an undeniable story?
Was Gagarin the first in space? Or was he the first to return alive from orbit? Why are they still talking about the cosmonauts who died before him, and what mysteries of the first flights have only recently been declassified? 108 minutes that shocked the world - what were they worth? Read the answer to these questions and watch in the documentary investigation program “Unsolved Secrets” of the TV channel “Moscow Trust”.
"Unsolved Mysteries": Was Yuri Gagarin the first man in space
First before Gagarin
November 10, 1959. A newspaper with sensational material is published in the USA. It contains a secret recording of conversations between the chief Soviet designer Sergei Korolev and the cosmonaut: “Earth. Pressure is normal.” After a minute of silence: “I can’t hear you, the batteries have failed. Oxygen. Comrades, for God’s sake, what to do? What? I can’t. Do you understand? Do you understand?” Then the astronaut’s speech turned into an indistinct muttering and disappeared completely. According to journalist Allen Henders, the deceased's name was Alexander Belokonev.
“As for Gagarin, there is no smoke without fire. There are some factors that allow rumors to emerge. We all know the canonical date of Gagarin’s flight – April 12, but before his flight there were five satellite ships on which the flight of the Vostok spacecraft was tested,” - said Vadim Lukashevich.
Andrey Simonov has been researching flight tests in our country for many years. He admits experiments in this industry have been going on since 1953.
Yuri Gagarin, 1961
“Nobody wanted to show, imagine: the world’s first man in space, and suddenly death. It would be an even greater shame than if we fall behind. Therefore, we checked every detail so that there was a one hundred percent guarantee of success. On the eve of Gagarin’s flight, the Daily Worker publishes an article of his Moscow correspondent. He reports: “On April 8, Vladimir Ilyushin, a test pilot, the son of the legendary aircraft designer, made an orbital flight on board the Rossiya spacecraft,” comments Andrey. Simonov.
“The Hungarian writer Eastwood Nemory wrote a whole book about how the first cosmonaut was Viktor Ilyushin, who survived, but was in unsightly shape after this unsuccessful landing,” said Yuri Karash.
The Italian agency Continental, shortly after Gagarin's return, published an interview with its scientists, the Undico-Cordillo brothers, who said that since 1957 they had recorded three tragedies in space. In their space listening center, they picked up radio signals of the dying, groans and intermittent heartbeats. Those recordings still exist today.
“Initially, about 3,000 people were selected. They looked first of all at their medical records, that is, there was a requirement for almost absolute physical health. Of these, as a result of strict selection, 6 people were left who flew under the Vostok program. In fact, “Of course, more were selected,” adds Yuri Karash.
The last unofficial flight in the foreign press is listed as February 4, 1961. The Baikonur launch actually took place that day, but who flew? Why didn't you come back? The details remained classified for many years.
Why did cosmonaut Bondarenko die?
The West is convinced that Gagarin only played the role of the first cosmonaut to hide his failures.
“Before Gagarin’s flight, the Americans also worked on their Mercury spacecraft, they had two suborbital launches, they managed to launch. In the first, the rhesus monkey Sam flew, and in the second, the first astronaut, the chimpanzee Ham, flew two months before Gagarin, he rose to a height of 285 km vertically. Maybe that’s why Korolev began to say that there was no point in launching Gagarin suborbitally, he would have been second behind the monkey,” said Vadim Lukashevich.
Today, astronauts acknowledge the death of one of their colleagues. This really happened before Gagarin, and they don’t like to talk about it. Valentin Bondarenko was one of the favorites of the first squad - the youngest and most cheerful. Pilot-cosmonaut Viktor Gorbatko was friends with him, but even he admits that he died through his own fault.
"We heated food and tea on ordinary spiral tiles. We wiped his head for sensors with alcohol, and an alcohol swab accidentally fell on the tile - he was getting ready to have dinner. A fire occurred, he had 80% burns, he was taken away in an ambulance, but he I lived only two or three hours,” recalls Viktor Gorbatko.
Yuri Gagarin before the start
Gagarin could not say goodbye to Bondarenko, he is called to the start. There is a battle for space. Before sending Yuri Gagarin into flight, he and his backup, German Titov, are brought to the cosmodrome twice. They work out to the smallest detail everything that can be done on Earth, and for real: in spacesuits, with a report, with negotiations.
“They rehearsed the landing, reported, they were taken in an elevator to the very top, to the ship. Everything was done except boarding the ship. That is, a large retinue: conscript soldiers standing in a cordon saw that the cosmonauts reported, went to the rocket, rocket flew away,” said Vadim Lukashevich.
This is how rumors are born. They are also fueled by kitchen conversations of dissidents who do not trust the authorities.
“Once I was in Italy, those who proved that Gagarin and Tereshkova were not the first gathered there,” recalls Viktor Gorbatko.
Late 70s Almost twenty years after Gagarin's flight. Cosmonauts can already divulge some details of the first launches. Then Viktor Gorbatko says for the first time that Valentin Bondarenko died not in space, but in a soundproofing chamber during a test. But those radio signals that the Italian brothers heard really did exist, and they came from space.
“Radio transmitters were taken on board. They simply recorded the voice and watched how the signal would pass to Earth. There were simple call signs: “Reception!”, “Can you hear me?”, etc. Western pilots, having heard this, might well have thought “that a person is saying this, although in fact it was a tape recorder speaking,” said Andrei Simonov.
Human trials
So was astronaut number zero, and who are the people whose names were named by the largest foreign publications? Why did they believe in them so much? Was Gagarin the first, second or twelfth cosmonaut in the world? The first journalistic investigation appeared in the summer of 1965.
“In American publications - Belokonev, Ledovsky, Shiborin, Gusev, Zavadovsky also flew before Gagarin - a lot of names were given. And it turned out that in 1959 in the Ogonyok magazine there was a detailed publication where testers of spacesuits for pilots, not for cosmonauts, were interviewed And they said that they were testing high-altitude spacesuits. And so the Americans took the names of people from this group and passed them off as astronauts. But questions remained. What really happened to Vladimir Ilyushin? - said Andrei Simonov.
“He was a very unique person. In 1959, he set a world altitude record for flying an airplane, a lot was written about him. And then in 1960 he suddenly disappeared from view. Everything was simple: on June 8, 1960, he got into a car accident on the way from Moscow to Zhukovsky, and was treated for a long time. This year he was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union, and he came on crutches to the presentation. And, apparently, someone saw, and gossip began that he had an unsuccessful flight into space. “I myself have always denied this,” recalls Simonov.
Yuri Gagarin in the Grand Kremlin Palace, 1961
Evgeny Kiryushin is also one of those who was named among the dead cosmonauts. His friends heard about this on a foreign radio station.
"Someone randomly asked me: 'Oh! Are you alive? “I heard you died” - “No, I say, you’re alive!” said Evgeny Kiryushin.
Kiryushin was one of those who did everything to prevent the cosmonauts from dying. For more than 20 years, he was officially listed as either a simple laboratory assistant or a mechanic at the Institute of Space Medicine. Only in the early 1990s did it become possible to speak out loud about his work, and he received the title of Hero of Russia.
"Let's say, explosive decompression, when they checked the suit for an explosion - a fraction of a second passes until complete depressurization, from earth pressure to vacuum - three tenths of a second. God knows what can happen: maybe lightning will tear off, maybe the helmet, and maybe the head ", explained Kiryushin.
There are countless tragedies among the testers; not many can withstand twelve-fold overloads and emergency ejections. A common injury is a spinal fracture. Until the very end, no one knows how a person will behave in space. It is believed that in a state of weightlessness he will simply go crazy. Gagarin's entire ship control panel is blocked. The code is in a special envelope; a deranged pilot will not be able to decipher it. Until the last minute, the success of the flight is in doubt.
“After the Second World War, the International Commission banned experiments and tests on people. But how can you develop such a new industry as astronautics without conducting experiments with people? This is impossible, therefore, despite all sorts of international acts, we had a group of testers who did this.” , - said Evgeny Kiryushin.
Vadim Lukashevich has written more than one book about astronautics. He believes that the Americans, by spreading rumors about Soviet launch failures, did not want to belittle the achievements of the Soviet country. On the contrary, they were frightened by such information. During the Cold War, they kept a close eye on the Russians. For meetings in the US Congress on the budget, the Pentagon even published a special brochure “Soviet Military Power”.
"The West then accepted very little information about the Soviet Union. To the point that they would not say where we started from. We started from Chuo Tama, but they said that from Baikonur, and this is hundreds of kilometers away. And the Americans recognized the launch site from ballistic calculations, looking at where the rocket took off. Gagarin is the first person in space, but according to the rules of the international association, in order to register a record, he had to take off in a ship, and land in a ship. And he ejected at an altitude of 80 km and landed on a parachute. separately, but when we submitted documents to register the record, we hid it. That is, they thought up a lot of things,” said Vadim Lukashevich.
Death of Ivan Ivanovich
Larisa Uspenskaya knows the secrets of space flight like no one else. For many years she has been in charge of the archive of the first cosmonaut corps. Unique, recently closed documents are stored here.
“In 2011, when celebrations and anniversary events took place, a massive declassification of documents was carried out. Documents from the archives of the president, the state authorities at that time and our department were declassified. Recently, a non-departmental commission declassified a significant block of archives relating to the first space flights,” said Larisa Uspenskaya .
The very first recordings of the archive of Gagarin's flight were made in real time by Korolev and the cosmonaut personally immediately after landing. Gagarin writes how he lost his pencil in weightlessness, how he was thirsty, how the ship deviated from course.
Designer Sergei Korolev and first cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, 1961
“The Americans took direction finding of Gagarin’s negotiations with the Earth during the flight and woke up the president that the race was lost,” said Vadim Lukashevich.
Meanwhile, three weeks earlier, a resident of the village of Korsha, in Western Kazakhstan, discovered a man in a spacesuit on a high spruce tree - he landed unsuccessfully with a parachute. The news about the deceased cosmonaut quickly spread around the area. But no one had time to get close to him: the military arrived and the victim disappeared without a trace.
“We can only call the dummy Ivan Ivanovich as cosmonaut number zero. It was absolutely impossible to imagine how the human body would react. The overloads that the astronauts were subjected to during training and testing on Earth could not compare with what would happen there,” said Larisa Uspenskaya .
Officially, two dummies flew into space, jokingly nicknamed Ivan Ivanovich by the designers. In order not to scare people, they will write on the suit of the second one: “Model”. But it was impossible to stop the rumors.
“It was only fifty years later that the UN established that April 12, 1961 is the day of the first human flight into space,” said Viktor Gorbatko.
Today, for $1 million, anyone can go into space. But has it become safe? What are astronauts still hiding?
“I was worried, of course, but there was no fear. Unfortunately, the previous crew, when we flew to Almaz (the Salyut-5 military station), panicked, they began to take things more and more acutely, which caused a deterioration in their health, and this led to an emergency landing, and for some time they even believed that the station was poisoned.
Only behind the scenes, testers say that the risk in flights has not disappeared. It's still roulette, which is why they sign non-disclosure documents. Their reports are kept as secret files for years.
“As a result of each flight, not counting TASS reports, a whole complex of documents arises. For example, Gagarin’s flight log has not yet been published. What do we know about the flights after Gagarin?” - Vadim Lukashevich argues.
It would seem that the veil of secrecy of the first flights has been lifted, and except for dogs and mannequins, no one had been in orbit before Gagarin, but until all the documents are declassified, these questions will be investigated again and again.
Major Gagarin completed the task. After him, Viktor Gorbatko managed to travel into space three times, each time the mission was made more difficult.
“Plains, forests, all this can be seen from space. On my second flight, taking the appropriate equipment, we could see a person,” recalls Viktor Gorbatko.
There are only about 20 people who gave their lives for the benefit of world progress in the field of space exploration, and today we will tell about them.
Their names are immortalized in the ashes of cosmic chronos, burned into the atmospheric memory of the universe forever, many of us would dream of remaining heroes for humanity, however, few would want to accept such a death as our cosmonaut heroes.
The 20th century was a breakthrough in mastering the path to the vastness of the Universe; in the second half of the 20th century, after much preparation, man was finally able to fly into space. However, there was a downside to such rapid progress - death of astronauts.
People died during pre-flight preparations, during the takeoff of the spacecraft, and during landing. Total during space launches, preparations for flights, including cosmonauts and technical personnel who died in the atmosphere More than 350 people died, about 170 astronauts alone.
Let us list the names of the cosmonauts who died during the operation of spacecraft (the USSR and the whole world, in particular America), and then we will briefly tell the story of their death.
Not a single cosmonaut died directly in Space; most of them all died in the Earth’s atmosphere, during the destruction or fire of the ship (the Apollo 1 astronauts died while preparing for the first manned flight).
Volkov, Vladislav Nikolaevich (“Soyuz-11”)
Dobrovolsky, Georgy Timofeevich (“Soyuz-11”)
Komarov, Vladimir Mikhailovich (“Soyuz-1”)
Patsaev, Viktor Ivanovich (“Soyuz-11”)
Anderson, Michael Phillip ("Columbia")
Brown, David McDowell (Columbia)
Grissom, Virgil Ivan (Apollo 1)
Jarvis, Gregory Bruce (Challenger)
Clark, Laurel Blair Salton ("Columbia")
McCool, William Cameron ("Columbia")
McNair, Ronald Erwin (Challenger)
McAuliffe, Christa ("Challenger")
Onizuka, Allison (Challenger)
Ramon, Ilan ("Columbia")
Resnick, Judith Arlen (Challenger)
Scobie, Francis Richard ("Challenger")
Smith, Michael John ("Challenger")
White, Edward Higgins (Apollo 1)
Husband, Rick Douglas ("Columbia")
Chawla, Kalpana (Columbia)
Chaffee, Roger (Apollo 1)
It is worth considering that we will never know the stories of the death of some astronauts, because this information is secret.
Soyuz-1 disaster
“Soyuz-1 is the first Soviet manned spacecraft (KK) of the Soyuz series. Launched into orbit on April 23, 1967. There was one cosmonaut on board Soyuz-1 - Hero of the Soviet Union, engineer-colonel V. M. Komarov, who died during the landing of the descent module. Komarov’s backup in preparation for this flight was Yu. A. Gagarin.”
Soyuz-1 was supposed to dock with Soyuz-2 to return the crew of the first ship, but due to problems, the launch of Soyuz-2 was canceled.
After entering orbit, problems began with the operation of the solar battery; after unsuccessful attempts to launch it, it was decided to lower the ship to Earth.
But during the descent, 7 km from the ground, the parachute system failed, the ship hit the ground at a speed of 50 km per hour, tanks with hydrogen peroxide exploded, the cosmonaut died instantly, Soyuz-1 almost completely burned out, the remains of the cosmonaut were severely burned so that it was impossible to identify even fragments of the body.
“This disaster was the first time a person died in flight in the history of manned astronautics.”
The causes of the tragedy have never been fully established.
Soyuz-11 disaster
Soyuz 11 is a spacecraft whose crew of three cosmonauts died in 1971. The cause of death was the depressurization of the descent module during the landing of the ship.
Just a couple of years after the death of Yu. A. Gagarin (the famous cosmonaut himself died in a plane crash in 1968), having already followed the seemingly well-trodden path of conquest of outer space, several more cosmonauts passed away.
Soyuz-11 was supposed to deliver the crew to the Salyut-1 orbital station, but the ship was unable to dock due to damage to the docking unit.
Crew composition:
Commander: Lieutenant Colonel Georgy Dobrovolsky
Flight engineer: Vladislav Volkov
Research engineer: Viktor Patsayev
They were between 35 and 43 years old. All of them were posthumously awarded awards, certificates, and orders.
It was never possible to establish what happened, why the spacecraft was depressurized, but most likely this information will not be given to us. But it’s a pity that at that time our cosmonauts were “guinea pigs” who were released into space without much security or security after the dogs. However, probably many of those who dreamed of becoming astronauts understood what a dangerous profession they were choosing.
Docking occurred on June 7, undocking on June 29, 1971. There was an unsuccessful attempt to dock with the Salyut-1 orbital station, the crew was able to board the Salyut-1, even stayed at the orbital station for several days, a TV connection was established, but already during the first approach to the station the cosmonauts stopped filming for some smoke. On the 11th day, a fire started, the crew decided to descend on the ground, but problems emerged that disrupted the undocking process. Spacesuits were not provided for the crew.
On June 29 at 21.25 the ship separated from the station, but a little more than 4 hours later contact with the crew was lost. The main parachute was deployed, the ship landed in a given area, and the soft landing engines fired. But the search team discovered at 02.16 (June 30, 1971) the lifeless bodies of the crew; resuscitation efforts were unsuccessful.
During the investigation, it was found that the cosmonauts tried to eliminate the leak until the last minute, but they mixed up the valves, fought for the wrong one, and meanwhile missed the opportunity for salvation. They died from decompression sickness - air bubbles were found during autopsy even in the heart valves.
The exact reasons for the depressurization of the ship have not been named, or rather, they have not been announced to the general public.
Subsequently, engineers and creators of spacecraft, crew commanders took into account many of the tragic mistakes of previous unsuccessful flights into space.
Challenger shuttle disaster
“The Challenger disaster occurred on January 28, 1986, when the space shuttle Challenger, at the very beginning of mission STS-51L, was destroyed by the explosion of its external fuel tank 73 seconds into flight, resulting in the death of all 7 crew members. The crash occurred at 11:39 EST (16:39 UTC) over the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of central Florida, USA."
In the photo, the ship's crew - from left to right: McAuliffe, Jarvis, Resnik, Scobie, McNair, Smith, Onizuka
All of America was waiting for this launch, millions of eyewitnesses and viewers watched the launch of the ship on TV, it was the culmination of the Western conquest of space. And so, when the grand launch of the ship took place, seconds later, a fire began, later an explosion, the shuttle cabin separated from the destroyed ship and fell at a speed of 330 km per hour on the surface of the water, seven days later the astronauts would be found in the broken cabin at the bottom of the ocean. Until the last moment, before hitting the water, some crew members were alive and tried to supply air to the cabin.
In the video below the article there is an excerpt of a live broadcast of the launch and death of the shuttle.
“The Challenger shuttle crew consisted of seven people. Its composition was as follows:
The crew commander is 46-year-old Francis “Dick” R. Scobee. US military pilot, US Air Force Lieutenant Colonel, NASA astronaut.
The co-pilot is 40-year-old Michael J. Smith. Test pilot, US Navy captain, NASA astronaut.
The scientific specialist is 39-year-old Ellison S. Onizuka. Test pilot, Lieutenant Colonel of the US Air Force, NASA astronaut.
The scientific specialist is 36-year-old Judith A. Resnick. Engineer and NASA astronaut. Spent 6 days 00 hours 56 minutes in space.
The scientific specialist is 35-year-old Ronald E. McNair. Physicist, NASA astronaut.
The payload specialist is 41-year-old Gregory B. Jarvis. Engineer and NASA astronaut.
The payload specialist is 37-year-old Sharon Christa Corrigan McAuliffe. A teacher from Boston who won the competition. For her, this was her first flight into space as the first participant in the “Teacher in Space” project.”
Last photo of the crew
To establish the causes of the tragedy, various commissions were created, but most of the information was classified; according to assumptions, the reasons for the ship’s crash were poor interaction between organizational services, irregularities in the operation of the fuel system that were not detected in time (the explosion occurred at launch due to the burnout of the wall of the solid fuel accelerator), and even. .terrorist attack Some said that the shuttle explosion was staged to harm America's prospects.
Space Shuttle Columbia disaster
“The Columbia disaster occurred on February 1, 2003, shortly before the end of its 28th flight (mission STS-107). The final flight of the space shuttle Columbia began on January 16, 2003. On the morning of February 1, 2003, after a 16-day flight, the shuttle was returning to Earth.
NASA lost contact with the craft at approximately 14:00 GMT (09:00 EST), 16 minutes before its intended landing on Runway 33 at the John F. Kennedy Space Center in Florida, which was scheduled to take place at 14:16 GMT. Eyewitnesses filmed burning debris from the shuttle flying at an altitude of about 63 kilometers at a speed of 5.6 km/s. All 7 crew members were killed."
Crew pictured - From top to bottom: Chawla, Husband, Anderson, Clark, Ramon, McCool, Brown
The Columbia shuttle was making its next 16-day flight, which was supposed to end with a landing on Earth, however, as the main version of the investigation says, the shuttle was damaged during the launch - a piece of torn off thermal insulating foam (the coating was intended to protect tanks with oxygen and hydrogen) as a result of the impact, damaged the wing coating, as a result of which, during the descent of the apparatus, when the heaviest loads on the body occur, the apparatus began to overheat and, subsequently, destruction.
Even during the shuttle mission, engineers more than once turned to NASA management to assess the damage and visually inspect the shuttle body using orbital satellites, but NASA experts assured that there were no fears or risks and the shuttle would descend safely to Earth.
“The crew of the shuttle Columbia consisted of seven people. Its composition was as follows:
The crew commander is 45-year-old Richard “Rick” D. Husband. US military pilot, US Air Force colonel, NASA astronaut. Spent 25 days 17 hours 33 minutes in space. Before Columbia, he was commander of the shuttle STS-96 Discovery.
The co-pilot is 41-year-old William "Willie" C. McCool. Test pilot, NASA astronaut. Spent 15 days 22 hours 20 minutes in space.
The flight engineer is 40-year-old Kalpana Chawla. Scientist, first female NASA astronaut of Indian origin. Spent 31 days, 14 hours and 54 minutes in space.
The payload specialist is 43-year-old Michael P. Anderson. Scientist, NASA astronaut. Spent 24 days 18 hours 8 minutes in space.
Zoology specialist - 41-year-old Laurel B. S. Clark (eng. Laurel B. S. Clark). US Navy captain, NASA astronaut. Spent 15 days 22 hours 20 minutes in space.
Scientific specialist (doctor) - 46-year-old David McDowell Brown. Test pilot, NASA astronaut. Spent 15 days 22 hours 20 minutes in space.
The scientific specialist is 48-year-old Ilan Ramon (English Ilan Ramon, Hebrew.אילן רמון). NASA's first Israeli astronaut. Spent 15 days 22 hours 20 minutes in space.”
The shuttle's descent took place on February 1, 2003, and within an hour it was supposed to land on Earth.
“On February 1, 2003, at 08:15:30 (EST), the space shuttle Columbia began its descent to Earth. At 08:44 the shuttle began to enter the dense layers of the atmosphere." However, due to damage, the leading edge of the left wing began to overheat. From 08:50, the ship's hull suffered severe thermal loads; at 08:53, debris began to fall off the wing, but the crew was alive and there was still communication.
At 08:59:32 the commander sent the last message, which was interrupted mid-sentence. At 09:00, eyewitnesses had already filmed the explosion of the shuttle, the ship collapsed into many fragments. that is, the fate of the crew was predetermined due to NASA’s inaction, but the destruction and loss of life occurred in a matter of seconds.
It is worth noting that the Columbia shuttle was used many times, at the time of its death the ship was 34 years old (in operation by NASA since 1979, the first manned flight in 1981), it flew into space 28 times, but this flight turned out to be fatal.
No one died in space itself; about 18 people died in the dense layers of the atmosphere and in spaceships.
In addition to the disasters of 4 ships (two Russian - "Soyuz-1" and "Soyuz-11" and American - "Columbia" and "Challenger"), in which 18 people died, there were several more disasters due to an explosion, fire during pre-flight preparation , one of the most famous tragedies is a fire in an atmosphere of pure oxygen during preparation for the Apollo 1 flight, then three American astronauts died, and in a similar situation, a very young USSR cosmonaut, Valentin Bondarenko, died. The astronauts simply burned alive.
Another NASA astronaut, Michael Adams, died while testing the X-15 rocket plane.
Yuri Alekseevich Gagarin died in an unsuccessful flight on an airplane during a routine training session.
Probably, the goal of the people who stepped into space was grandiose, and it is not a fact that even knowing their fate, many would have renounced astronautics, but still we always need to remember at what cost the path to the stars was paved for us...
In the photo there is a monument to the fallen astronauts on the Moon
A spacewalk is the work of an astronaut in outer space outside of his spacecraft. A more expanded term also includes the concept of exiting a ship onto the surface of the Moon, planet or other space object.
Moment of release
Americans and Russians define the moment of the start of spacewalk differently. This difference is associated with the design features of the first spacecraft. From the very beginning, Soviet ships had a separate airlock compartment, which is why the start of spacewalking is considered the moment when the cosmonaut depressurizes the airlock and finds himself in a vacuum, and its end is the moment the hatch is closed. The first American ships did not have an airlock, because of this, the entire ship was depressurized when performing a spacewalk. In such conditions, the start of spacewalk was considered to be the moment when the astronaut’s head protruded beyond the boundaries of the ship, and his body still continued to be inside the compartment. The modern American criterion takes the switching of the spacesuit to autonomous power supply as the beginning and the beginning of pressurization as the end of the spacewalk.
How does spacewalk work?
Spacewalks can be performed in different ways. In one case, the astronaut is connected to the spacecraft with a special safety cord, sometimes combined with an oxygen supply hose (in this case it is called an “umbilical cord”), and simply the muscular efforts of the astronaut are sufficient to return to the ship. In another - completely autonomous flight in outer space. In this case, it is necessary to ensure the possibility of the astronaut returning to the spacecraft. This is achieved using a special technical system.
Man's first exit
The first human spacewalk took place on March 18, 1965. It was Soviet cosmonaut Alexei Leonov, who opened the external hatch of the airlock chamber of the Voskhod-2 spacecraft and floated out into near-Earth space. Leonov spent 12 minutes 9 seconds outside the ship.
Flight history
The launch vehicle with the crew of the Voskhod-2 spacecraft launched on March 18, 1965 at exactly 10:00 Moscow time from the Baikonur Cosmodrome. Immediately after entering orbit, already on the first orbit, the airlock chamber was inflated and preparations for entering outer space began. The ship's airlock was connected to the cabin by a hatch with a sealing lid, which opened inside the pressurized cabin both automatically (using a special mechanism with an electric drive) and manually. The drive was controlled from a remote control.
Two movie cameras were placed in the airlock chamber to film the process of the astronaut entering and exiting the chamber, a lighting system, and units of the airlock camera system. A movie camera was installed outside to film an astronaut in outer space, cylinders with a supply of air to pressurize the airlock chamber, and cylinders with an emergency supply of oxygen.
First American astronaut
The first American astronaut to walk in outer space was Edward White, who performed a spacewalk during his flight on the Gemini IV spacecraft on June 3, 1965. Since the ships of the Gemini series did not have an airlock, the crew had to completely depressurize the ship's cabin to exit. The total time of the first exit was 36 minutes.
A step into space opened up the opportunity to touch the previously unknown and try to study what was previously inaccessible.
In the twentieth century, the world gave us brave and fearless people. They were able to provide the world with the opportunity to see the beauty of space with their own eyes.
Man's first footprint on the moon
Apollo 11 was the first American spacecraft to take humans to the surface of the Moon. The flight itself took place on July 16 and ended on July 24, 1969.
Neil Armstrong And Edwing Aldrin spent almost a day on the surface of the Moon. The exact time they were there was 21 hours 36 minutes 21 seconds. The module was controlled all the time Michael Collins.
The very first person to travel into outer space
It happened in 1965, Soviet cosmonaut Alexey Leonov March 18, together with his partner Pavel Belyaev on the Voskhod-2 ship, set off on that important flight for all of us. Leonov spent 12 minutes 9 seconds outside his ship. An interesting fact is that when Leonov returned, he could not fit into the airlock chamber and then Alexey vented the excess oxygen, he was very worried, but still managed to get into the chamber. It is also interesting that during landing these two heroes ended up not where they had planned, namely 180 kilometers from Perm, somewhere in the taiga.
The first legendary person to go into space
Probably everyone knows this man - Yuri Gagarin. His unforgettable flight, which conquered the whole world, took place on April 12, 1961. Let us remind you that this date is called “Cosmonautics Day”. Yuri made his flight on the Vostok-1 spacecraft; the flight itself lasted 108 minutes, and the cosmonaut spent only 89 minutes in orbit; the remaining time was spent on takeoff and landing.
The first woman astronaut
Valentina Tereshkova- the first brave woman who was able to go into space. Her flight was carried out alone - this is a unique case. She made a flight on the Vostok-6 spacecraft, which ended up in Earth orbit on June 16, 1963. The flight lasted only 22 hours 41 minutes.
The twentieth century gave us the world's first person in space, the first woman astronaut and the first person to walk in outer space. During the same period of time, man took his first steps on the Moon.
First man on the moon
The first spacecraft to bring people to the surface of the Moon was the American manned exploration spacecraft Apollo 11. The flight began on July 16 and ended on July 24, 1969.The pilot and crew commander: Edwin Aldrin and Neil Armstrong spent almost a day on the surface of the Moon. The time they spent there was twenty-one hours, thirty-six minutes and twenty-one seconds. All this time, the command module was controlled by Michael Collins, who, while in orbit, was waiting for a signal.
Astronauts made one exit to the surface of the Moon. Its duration is almost two and a half hours. The first step onto the surface of this planet was taken by crew commander Armstrong. Fifteen minutes later, Aldrin joined him. During the surface exit, the astronauts planted a US flag on the Moon, took several kilograms of soil for further research, and also installed research instruments. They took the first photographs of the landscape. Thanks to the installed equipment, it became possible to determine with maximum accuracy the distance between the Moon and the Earth. This significant event took place on July 20, 1969.
Thus, America won the lunar race, being the first to land on the surface of the earth's satellite, and the national goal set by John Kennedy was considered fulfilled.
It should be noted that some researchers call the landing of American astronauts on the Earth’s natural satellite the largest hoax of the twentieth century. They also provide a number of evidence that the above-described landing did not take place at all.
First man in outer space
Man first went into outer space in 1965. We are talking about the Soviet cosmonaut Alexei Leonov. He set off on that significant flight on March 18 together with his partner Pavel Belyaev on the Voskhod-2 spacecraft. 
Having reached orbit, Leonov donned a spacesuit designed for spacewalks. The oxygen supply in it was enough for forty-five minutes. Belyaev at this time began to install a flexible airlock chamber, through which Leonov was supposed to enter space. Having taken all necessary precautions, Leonov left the ship. In total, the astronaut spent 12 minutes 9 seconds outside of it. At this time, Leonov’s partner sent a message to Earth that the man had gone into outer space. An image of an astronaut floating against the backdrop of the Earth was broadcast on television.
During the return, I had to worry, because in the vacuum conditions the suit was greatly inflated, which is why Leonov did not fit into the airlock chamber. Finding himself a prisoner of outer space, he independently found a way out of this situation, realizing that in this case, advice from Earth would not help him. To reduce the size of the spacesuit, the astronaut vented excess oxygen. He did this gradually, at the same time trying to squeeze into the cell. Every minute counted. Leonov prefers not to tell anyone about his experiences at that moment.
Difficulties with the spacesuit were not the last troubles of that significant flight. It turned out that the orientation system did not work, and the astronauts were forced to switch to manual control to land. The result of such a landing was that Belyaev and Leonov landed in a different place than expected. The capsule ended up in the taiga, 180 kilometers from Perm. Two days later, the astronauts were discovered. This successful flight was marked by awarding Leonov and Belyaev the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.
First woman astronaut
The first woman to go into space was Valentina Tereshkova. She carried out her flight alone, which in itself is an unprecedented case. Tereshkova was chosen for this flight from a large number of parachutists. 
The Vostok-6 spacecraft found itself in Earth orbit on June 16, 1963. The Soviet Union became not only the first country to send an astronaut into space, but also the first country to send a woman into space. This step was politically motivated.
It is surprising that the relatives of the world's first female astronaut learned about her flight into space from radio messages only after she made a successful landing. Knowing that the flight could very well end in tragedy, the girl chose to keep the upcoming event a secret.
Tereshkova's flight lasted 22 hours and 41 minutes. During this time, the first female cosmonaut made forty-eight orbits around our planet. Her call sign is “Seagull”.
The first person to go into space
As you know, the first person to go into space is Yuri Gagarin. His historic flight, which thundered throughout the world, took place on April 12, 1961. This date is called “Cosmonautics Day”. During the time spent in orbit, Gagarin completed the entire planned program. According to his recollections, he carefully recorded all his observations, examined the Earth and even ate.Well, not a single astronaut will go to the largest star in the universe, the radius of which is one and a half thousand times greater than the radius of the sun. According to the site, there are no plans to send people outside the solar system yet.
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