Spartan Stadium (formerly College Field, Macklin Field and Macklin Stadium) opened in 1923 in East Lansing, Michigan, United States. It is primarily used for football, and is the home field of the Michigan State University Spartans. After the addition of luxury boxes and club seating in 2004–2005, the capacity of the stadium grew from 72,027 to 75,005—though it has held more than 80,000 fans—making it the Big Ten's sixth largest stadium.

 

In the early 1920s, school officials decided to construct a new stadium to replace Old College Field. The resulting stadium—the lower half of the current stadium—was ready in the fall of 1923 with a capacity of 14,000. Over the years, the stadium grew. In 1935, the seating capacity increased to 26,000 and the facility was dedicated as Macklin Field. John Macklin, football coach from 1911 to 1915, put Michigan State football on the map with a 29–5 record over five seasons with victories over big name programs such as Michigan, Notre Dame, Ohio State, Penn State, and Wisconsin. After admittance into the Big Ten in 1948, Michigan State increased stadium capacity to 51,000 and the field was renamed Macklin Stadium. With Spartan football attracting national attention under Clarence "Biggie" Munn and Hugh "Duffy" Daugherty, 9,000 seats were added in 1956. The following season upper decks were added to the east and west sides boosting the capacity to 76,000. That same season Michigan State dropped the name Macklin Stadium in favor of Spartan Stadium.

 

In 1969, TartanTurf replaced the natural grass field and a modern scoreboard was added in 1973. Later in the 1970s, AstroTurf replaced the TartanTurf. A new modern video scoreboard was added before the 1991 season. Renovations improving sight lines, field security, handicap access, and club seats in 1994 reduced Spartan Stadium's capacity to 72,027. New turf was also installed in the summer of 1994. In 1998, Spartan Stadium's sound system was upgraded, adding a 21' x 27' Mitsubishi Diamond Vision video board to the south end and a message board to the north end. Home to one of the top turfgrass research programs in the nation, Michigan State installed a natural grass field in 2002. The most recent expansion was completed in August 2005. A new press box, 24 luxury suites, and 862 club seats were constructed on the west side of Spartan Stadium. This addition made Spartan Stadium the tallest building in East Lansing.

 

Through the 2012 season until their game against Notre Dame, the Spartans had won 15 straight games in Spartan Stadium—the program's longest home streak since winning 19 straight from 1950-53. Michigan State went undefeated at home in back-to-back seasons (2010 and 2011) including marquee wins over Wisconsin, Michigan, and Notre Dame, marking the first consecutive perfect home seasons since 1955-56.

 

For almost 9 years, the stadium held the world record for the largest ice hockey crowd in history. On October 6, 2001, a rink was constructed at the center of the stadium for Michigan State's season-opening game against archrival Michigan.

 

Dubbed "The Cold War", 74,554 watched No. 1 nationally ranked Michigan State and No. 4 nationally ranked Michigan to a 3–3 tie. Country artist Shannon Brown sang during the second intermission. The game set off a wave of outdoor ice hockey games in large stadiums. The record for the highest-attended outdoor hockey game is now held by the University of Michigan where 104,173 came to Michigan Stadium to watch Michigan beat Michigan State 5-0 in The Big Chill at the Big House.

 

Game days at Spartan Stadium provide opportunity for tailgating. Popular locations include the tennis courts, "the rock", and around the MSU library area on north campus. Open alcohol is permitted on campus during tailgating hours, with the exception of Munn field.

 

On the morning of each home game, the team completes a 10-minute walk from their hotel at the Kellogg Center, crossing the Red Cedar River, passing the Spartan Statue and finally into the stadium. The sidewalks are lined with fans applauding and cheering "Go Green, Go White."

 

"It's a beautiful day for football!" – Just before kickoff, the PA announcer gives the weather forecast and, with the help of the fans, declares that "it's a beautiful day for football!" This tradition takes place even during games played in poor weather.

 

Introduced in 2007, clips from the movie 300 were added to the "Thunderstruck" introduction sequence. A clip of Spartan King Leonidas shouting, "Spartans! What is your profession?" is played whenever the opponent is in a third down situation. The crowd responds with an emphatic "Ha-Ooh! Ha-Ooh! Ha-Ooh!" while thrusting their fists in the air as if they were carrying spears like in the movie. This is very popular with the football team. On October 16, 2010, 300 star Gerard Butler attended the Spartans' homecoming game. At the beginning of the game Butler walked onto the field repeating the familiar call to fans.

 

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spartan_Stadium_(East_Lansing%2C_Michigan)

 

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Text_of_Creative_Commons_...

 

Spanish postcard by Archivo Bermejo, no. 5495. Photo: Warner Bros. Publicity still for Lafayette Escadrille (William A Wellman, 1958).

 

With his blond, tanned, surfer-boy good looks, Tab Hunter (1931) was one of Hollywood’s hottest teen idols of the 1950s era. The American actor, singer, and author portrayed boy-next-door marines, cowboys and swoon-bait sweethearts, and had a huge hit with the song Young Love (1957). When his career faded during the 1960s, he starred in Italy in Spaghetti Westerns. In the 1980s Hunter returned in the camp classics Polyester (1981) and Lust in the Dust (1985).

 

Tab Hunter was born Arthur Andrew Kelm in New York City, in 1931. He is the son of Gertrude (Gelien) and Charles Kelm. Hunter's father was an abusive man and within a few years of his birth, his parents divorced and his mother moved with her two sons to California. Tab’s older brother Walter John Gelien (1930) would die in Vietnam in 1965 leaving seven children. As a teenager, Hunter was a figure skater, competing in both singles and pairs. He joined the U.S. Coast Guard at the age of 15, lying about his age to enlist. While in the Coast Guard, he gained the nickname ‘Hollywood’ for his penchant for watching movies rather than going to bars while on liberty. He was eventually discharged when the age deception was revealed. Returning home, his life-long passion for horseback riding led to a job with a riding academy. He was given the stage name Tab Hunter by his first agent, Henry Willson. With no previous experience Tab made his first, albeit minor, film debut in the racially trenchant drama The Lawless (Joseph Losey, 1950) starring Gail Russell. His fetching handsomeness and trim, athletic physique landed him a role in the British production Saturday Island (Stuart Heisler, 1952) opposite Linda Darnell. His shirt remained off for a good portion of the film, which certainly did not go unnoticed. He was signed by Warner Bros. The Hollywood studio system artificially groomed him and nicknamed him ‘The Sigh Guy’. His co-starring role as young Marine Danny in the World War II drama Battle Cry (Raoul Walsh, 1955), made him one of Hollywood's top young romantic leads. In the film based on the Leon Uris novel, Hunter has an affair with an older woman (Dorothy Malone), but ends up marrying the girl next door (Mona Freeman). In September 1955, the tabloid magazine Confidential reported Hunter's 1950 arrest f following an L.A. raid on a ‘pajama party’ in Walnut Park. Tab was eventually fined $50 for a reduced ‘disorderly conduct’ charge after originally being charged with ‘idle, lewd or dissolute conduct.’ The article, and a second one focusing on Rory Calhoun's prison record, were the result of a deal Henry Willson had brokered with Confidential in exchange for not revealing his client Rock Hudson's sexual orientation. Surprisingly this had no negative effect on Hunter's career. His hit films of these years include The Burning Hills (Stuart Heisler, 1955) with Natalie Wood, The Girl He Left Behind (David Butler, 1956), and Gunman’s Walk (Phil Karlson, 1957) with Van Heflin. Hunter, James Dean, and Natalie Wood were the last of the actors placed under exclusive studio contract to Warner Bros. In 1957, Hunter had a hit record with the song Young Love, which was #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart for six weeks and became one of the larger hits of the Rock n' Roll era. Another hit record was Ninety-Nine Ways, which peaked at #11. His success prompted Jack L. Warner to enforce the actor's contract with the Warner Bros. studio by banning Dot Records, the label for which Hunter had recorded the single (and which was owned by rival Paramount Pictures), from releasing a follow-up album he had recorded for them. He established Warner Bros. Records specifically for Hunter. In 1958, Hunter starred in the musical film Damn Yankees (George Abbott, Stanley Donen, 1958), in which he played Joe Hardy of Washington DC's American League baseball club. Another success was That Kind of Woman (Sidney Lumet, 1959) with Sophia Loren. Hunter was Warner Bros.' top money-grossing star from 1955 through 1959.

 

Tab Hunter's failure to win the role of Tony in the film adaptation of West Side Story (Jerome Robbins, Robert Wise, 1961) prompted him to agree to star in a weekly television sitcom. In 1960, prior to the program's debut, he was arrested by the police for allegedly beating his dog Fritz. His 11-day trial started in mid-October, a month after The Tab Hunter Show debuted on on NBC. The neighbour who initiated the charges had done so for spite when Hunter declined her repeated invitations to dinner, and he was acquitted by the jury. The Tab Hunter Show had moderate ratings and was cancelled after one season. Following the film comedy The Pleasure of His Company (George Seaton, 1961) opposite Debbie Reynolds, the quality of his films fell off drastically during the 1960s. In Italy he made the fantasy L'arciere delle mille e una note/ The Golden Arrow (Antonio Margheriti, 1962) with Rossana Podestà. In Great Britain he starred in The City Under the Sea (Jacques Tourneur, 1965) with Vincent Price. For a short time in the late 1960s, after several seasons of starring in summer stock and dinner theatre in shows such as Bye Bye Birdie, The Tender Trap and Under the Yum Yum Tree. Hunter settled in the south of France, and acted in Spaghetti Westerns like El dedo del destino/ The Cups of San Sebastian (Richard Rush, 1967) and La vendetta è il mio perdono/Shotgun (Roberto Mauri, 1968). During the 1970 he worked mainly for TV but also starred in the horror film Sweet Kill (Curtis Hanson, 1972) and appeared in the Western The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean (John Huston, 1972). His career was revived in the 1980s, when he spoofed his old clean-cut image by appearing opposite Divine in the camp classics Polyester (John Waters, 1981) and Lust in the Dust (Paul Bartel, 1985), which Hunter also co-produced. He then played Mr. Stewart, the substitute teacher in Grease 2 (Patricia Birch, 1982), who sang Reproduction. Hunter had a major role in the horror film Cameron's Closet (Armand Mastroianni, 1988). He also wrote, co-produced and starred in Dark Horse (David Hemmings, 1992). Hunter's autobiography, Tab Hunter Confidential: The Making of a Movie Star (2006), co-written with Eddie Muller, became a New York Times best-seller as did the paperback edition in 2007. The book is still currently in publication and was nominated for several writing awards. In the book, he acknowledged that he is gay, confirming rumours that had circulated since the height of his fame. According to William L. Hamilton of The New York Times, detailed reports about Hunter's alleged romances with close friends Debbie Reynolds and Natalie Wood, were strictly the fodder of studio publicity departments. Hunter had a long-term relationship with actor Anthony Perkins and shorter flings with dancer Rudolf Nureyev and champion figure skater Ronnie Robertson, before settling down with his partner of over 30 years, Allan Glaser. In 2015 Hunter's partner Allan Glaser produced the documentary Tab Hunter Confidential (Jeffrey Schwarz, 2015), based on Hunter’s autobiography, which re-entered the New York Times Best Seller list during the release of the documentary.

 

Sources: Gary Brumburgh (IMDb), Wikipedia, and IMDb.

The University of Arizona (also referred to as UA, U of A, or Arizona) is a land-grant and space-grant public institution of higher education and research located in Tucson, Arizona, United States. The University of Arizona was the first university in the state of Arizona, founded in 1885 (twenty-seven years before the Arizona Territory achieved statehood), and is considered a Public Ivy. UA includes the only medical school in Arizona that grants M.D. degrees. In 2006, total enrollment was 36,805 students. UA is governed by the Arizona Board of Regents.

 

The University of Arizona was approved by the Arizona Territory''''''''''''''''s Thieving Thirteenth Legislature in 1885. The city of Tucson had hoped to receive the appropriation for the territory''''''''''''''''s mental hospital, which carried a $100,000 allocation instead of the $25,000 allotted to the territory''''''''''''''''s only university (Arizona State University was also chartered in 1885, but at the time it was created as Arizona''''''''''''''''s normal school, and not a university). Tucson''''''''''''''''s contingent of legislators was delayed in reaching Prescott due to flooding on the Salt River and by the time they arrived back-room deals allocating the most desirable territorial institutions had already been made. Tucson was largely disappointed at receiving what was viewed as an inferior prize. With no parties willing to step forth and provide land for the new institution, the citizens of Tucson prepared to return the money to the Territorial Legislature until two gamblers and a saloon keeper decided to donate the land necessary to build the school. Classes met for the first time in 1891 with 32 students in Old Main, the first building constructed on campus, and still in use to this day.[2]

 

Because there were no high schools in Arizona Territory, the University maintained separate preparatory classes for the first 23 years of operation.

 

The main campus sits on 380 acres (1.5 km2) in central Tucson, about one mile (1.6 km) northeast of downtown. There are 179 buildings on the main campus. Many of the early buildings, including the Arizona State Museum buildings (one of them the 1927 main library) and Centennial Hall, were designed by Roy Place, a prominent Tucson architect. It was Place''''''''''''''''s use of red brick that set the tone for the red brick facades that are a basic and ubiquitous part of nearly all UA buildings, even those built in recent decades. Indeed, almost every UA building has red brick as a major component of the design, or at the very least, a stylistic accent to harmonize it with the other buildings on campus. [3][4]

 

The campus is roughly divided into quadrants. The north and south sides of campus are delineated by a grassy expanse called the Mall, which stretches from Old Main eastward to the campus'''''''''''''''' eastern border at Campbell Avenue (a major north-south arterial street). The west and east sides of campus are separated roughly by Highland Avenue and the Student Union Memorial Center (see below).

 

The science and mathematics buildings tend to be clustered in the southwest quadrant; the intercollegiate athletics facilities to the southeast; the arts and humanities buildings to the northwest (with the dance department being a major exception as its main facilities are far to the east end of campus), with the engineering buildings in the north central area. The optical and space sciences buildings are clustered on the east side of campus near the sports stadiums and the (1976) main library.

 

Speedway Boulevard, one of Tucson''''''''''''''''s primary east-west arterial streets, traditionally defined the northern boundary of campus but since the 1980s, several university buildings have been constructed north of this street, expanding into a neighborhood traditionally filled with apartment complexes and single-family homes. The University has purchased a handful of these apartment complexes for student housing in recent years. Sixth Street typically defines the southern boundary, with single-family homes (many of which are rented out to students) south of this street.

 

Park Avenue has traditionally defined the western boundary of campus, and there is a stone wall which runs along a large portion of the east side of the street, leading to the old Main Gate, and into the driveway leading to Old Main.

 

Along or adjacent to all of these major streets are a wide variety of retail facilities serving the student, faculty and staff population: shops, bookstores, bars, banks, credit unions, coffeehouses and major chain fast-food restaurants such as Burger King and Chick-fil-A. The area near University Boulevard and Park Avenue, near the Main Gate, has long been a major center of such retail activity; many of the shops have been renovated since the late 1990s and a nine-story Marriott hotel was built in this immediate district in 1996.

 

The oldest campus buildings are located west of Old Main. Most of the buildings east of Old Main date from the 1940s to the 1980s, with a few recent buildings constructed in the years since 1990.

 

The Student Union Memorial Center, located on the north side of the Mall east of Old Main, was completely reconstructed between 2000 and 2003, replacing a 270,000-square-foot (25,000 m2) structure originally opened in 1951 (with additions in the 1960s). The new $60 million student union has 405,000 square feet (37,600 m2) of space on four levels, including 14 restaurants (including a food court with such national chains as Burger King, Panda Express, Papa John''''''''''''''''s Pizza and Chick-fil-A), a new two-level bookstore (that includes a counter for Clinique merchandise as well as an office supplies section sponsored by Staples with many of the same Staples-branded items found in their regular stores), 23 meeting rooms, eight lounge areas (including one dedicated to the USS Arizona), a computer lab, a U.S. Post Office, a copy center named Fast Copy, and a video arcade.

 

For current museum hours, fees, and directions see "campus visitor''''''''''''''''s guide" in the external links.

 

Much of the main campus has been designated an arboretum. Plants from around the world are labeled along a self-guided plant walk. The Krutch Cactus Garden includes the tallest Boojum tree in the state of Arizona.[6] (The university also manages Boyce Thompson Arboretum State Park, located c. 85 miles (137 km) north of the main campus.)

Two herbaria are located on the University campus and both are referred to as "ARIZ" in the Index Herbariorum

The University of Arizona Herbarium - contains roughly 400,000 specimens of plants.

The Robert L. Gilbertson Mycological Herbarium - contains more than 40,000 specimens of fungi.

The Arizona State Museum is the oldest anthropology museum in the American Southwest.

The Center for Creative Photography features rotating exhibits. The permanent collection includes over 70,000 photos, including many Ansel Adams originals.

University of Arizona Museum of Art.

The Arizona Historical Society is located one block west of campus.

Flandrau Science Center has exhibits, a planetarium, and a public-access telescope.

The University of Arizona Mineral Museum is located inside Flandrau Science Center. The collection dates back to 1892 and contains over 20,000 minerals from around the world, including many examples from Arizona and Mexico.

The University of Arizona Poetry Center

The Stevie Eller Dance Theatre, opened in 2003 (across the Mall from McKale Center) as a 28,600-square-foot (2,660 m2) dedicated performance venue for the UA''''''''''''''''s dance program, one of the most highly regarded university dance departments in the United States. Designed by Gould Evans, a Phoenix-based architectural firm, the theatre was awarded the 2003 Citation Award from the American Institute of Architects, Arizona Chapter. [7]

The football stadium has the Navajo-Pinal-Sierra dormitory in it. The dorm rooms are underneath the seats along the South and East sides of the stadium.

 

Academics

 

[edit] Academic subdivisions

The University of Arizona offers 334 fields of study at four levels: bachelor''''''''''''''''s, masters, doctoral, and first professional.

 

Academic departments and programs are organized into colleges and schools. Typically, schools are largely independent or separately important from their parent college. In addition, not all schools are a part of a college. The university maintains a current list of colleges and schools at <a href="http://www.arizona.edu/index/colleges.php">www.arizona.edu/index/colleges.php</a>. [10]

  

[edit] Admissions

The UA is considered a "selective" university by U.S. News and World Report.[11] In the fall semester of 2007, the UA matriculated 6,569 freshmen, out of 16,853 freshmen admitted, from an application pool of 21,199 applicants. The average person admitted to the university as a freshman in fall 2007 had a weighted GPA of 3.31 and an average score of 1102 out of 1600 on the SAT admissions test. Sixty-nine of these freshman students were National Merit Scholars.[12]

 

UA students hail from all states in the U.S. While nearly 72% of students are from Arizona, nearly 10% are from California, followed by a significant student presence from Illinois, Texas, Washington, and New York (2007).[13] The UA has over 2,200 international students representing 122 countries. International students comprise approximately 6% of the total enrollment at UA.[13]

  

[edit] Academic and research reputation

Among the strongest programs at UA are optical sciences, astronomy, astrophysics, planetary sciences, hydrology, Earth Sciences, hydrogeology, linguistics, philosophy, sociology, architecture and landscape architecture, engineering, and anthropology.

 

Arizona is classified as a Carnegie Foundation "RU/VH: Research Universities (very high research activity)" university (formerly "Research 1" university).

 

The university receives more than $500 million USD annually in research funding, generating around two thirds of the research dollars in the Arizona university system.[14] 26th highest in the U.S. (including public and private institutions).[15] The university has an endowment of $466.7 million USD as of 2006(2006 NACUBO Endowment Study).[16]

 

UA is awarded more NASA grants for space exploration than any other university nationally.[17] The UA was recently awarded over $325 million USD for its Lunar and Planetary Laboratory (LPL) to lead NASA''''''''''''''''s 2007-08 mission to Mars to explore the Martian Arctic. The LPL''''''''''''''''s work in the Cassini spacecraft orbit around Saturn is larger than that of any other university globally. The UA laboratory designed and operated the atmospheric radiation investigations and imaging on the probe.[18] The UA operates the HiRISE camera, a part of the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.

 

The Eller College of Management McGuire Entrepreneurship program is currently the number 1 ranked undergraduate program in the country. This ranking was made by The Princeton Review and Entrepreneur Magazine.

The Council for Aid to Education ranked the UA 12th among public universities and 24th overall in financial support and gifts.[citation needed] Campaign Arizona, an effort to raise over $1 billion USD for the school, exceeded that goal by $200 million a year earlier than projected.[19]

The National Science Foundation ranks UA 16th among public universities, and 26th among all universities nationwide in research funding.[19]

UA receives more NASA grants annually than the next nine top NASA-Jet Propulsion Laboratory-funded universities combined.[19]

UA students have been selected as Flinn, Truman, Rhodes, Goldwater, Fulbright, and National Merit scholars.[20]

According to The Chronicle of Higher Education, UA is among the top 25 producers of Fulbright awards in the U.S.[19]

 

[edit] World rankings

Academic Ranking of World Universities (Shanghai Jiao Tong University, China): 77th (2008).

Webometrics Ranking of World Universities (Cybermetrics Lab, National Research Council of Spain): 18th (2008).

The G-Factor International University Ranking (Peter Hirst): 15th (2006).

Professional Ranking of World Universities (École nationale supérieure des mines de Paris, France): 35th (2008).

Performance Ranking of Scientific Papers for World Universities (Higher Education Evaluation and Accreditation Council of Taiwan): 37th (2008).

Global University Ranking by Wuhan University (Wuhan University, China): 43rd (2007).

 

[edit] Notable associations

UA is a member of the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, a consortium of institutions pursuing research in astronomy. The association operates observatories and telescopes, notably Kitt Peak National Observatory located just outside of Tucson.

UA is a member of the Association of American Universities, and the sole representative from Arizona to this group.

 

[edit] Notable rankings

The Eller College of Management''''''''''''''''s programs in Accounting, Entrepreneurship, Management Information Systems, and Marketing are ranked in the nation''''''''''''''''s top 25 by U.S. News & World Report. The Masters in MIS program has been ranked in the top 5 by U.S. News & World Report since the inception of the rankings.[21] It is one of three programs to have this distinction.

The Eller MBA program has ranked among the top 50 programs for 11 straight years by U.S. News & World Report. In 2005 the MBA program was ranked 40th by U.S. News & World Report. Forbes Magazine ranked the Eller MBA program 33rd overall for having the best Return on Investment (ROI), in its fourth biennial rankings of business schools 2005. The MBA program was ranked 24th by The Wall Street Journal''''''''''''''''s 2005 Interactive Regional Ranking.[22]

Out of 30 accredited graduate programs in landscape architecture in the country, DesignIntelligence ranked the College’s School of Landscape Architecture as the No. 1 graduate program in the western region. For 2009 the Undergraduate Program in Architecture was ranked 12th in the nation for all universities, public and private.

The James E. Rogers College of Law was ranked 38th nationally by U.S. News & World Report in 2008.[23]

According to the National Academy of Sciences, the Graduate Program in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology is one of the top-rated research departments in ecology and evolutionary biology in the U.S.

The Systems and Industrial Engineering (SIE) Department is ranked 18th in the ''''''''''''''''America''''''''''''''''s Best Graduate Schools 2006'''''''''''''''' by US News and World Report.

The analytical chemistry program at UA is ranked 4th nationally by U.S. News & World Report (2006).[22]

The Geosciences program is ranked 7th nationally by U.S. News & World Report in 2006.[22]

The Doctor of Pharmacy program is ranked 4th nationally by U.S. News & World Report in 2005.[22]

The Photography program is ranked 9th nationally, also by U.S. News & World Report in 2008.

The Master of Fine Arts (MFA) program in Creative Writing at the University of Arizona has ranked in the top ten consistently according to U.S. News & World Report.

In the Philosophical Gourmet rankings of philosophy departments, the graduate program in Philosophy is ranked 13th nationally. The political philosophy program at the University of Arizona is top ranked first in the English speaking world, according to the same report.

Many programs in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences have ranked in the top ten in the U.S. according to Faculty Scholarly Productivity Index: Agricultural Sciences -- No. 1, Agronomy and Crop Sciences -- No. 1, Entomology -- No. 2, Botany and Plant Biology -- No. 4, Nutrition -- No. 10.

 

In 2005, the Association of Research Libraries, in its "Ranked Lists for Institutions for 2005" (the most recent year available), ranked the UA libraries as the 33rd overall university library in North America (out of 113) based on various statistical measures of quality; this is one rank below the library of Duke University, one rank ahead of that of Northwestern University[24] (both these schools are members, along with the UA, of the Association of American Universities).

 

As of 2006, the UA''''''''''''''''s library system contains nearly five million volumes.

 

The Main Library, opened in 1976, serves as the library system''''''''''''''''s reference, periodical, and administrative center; most of the main collections and special collections are housed here as well. The Main Library is located on the southeast quadrant of campus near McKale Center and Arizona Stadium.

 

In 2002, a $20 million, 100,000-square-foot (10,000 m2) addition, the Integrated Learning Center (ILC), was completed; it is a home base for first-year students (especially those undecided on a major) which features classrooms, auditoriums, a courtyard with an alcove for vending machines, and a greatly expanded computer lab (the Information Commons) with several dozen Gateway and Apple Macintosh G5 workstations (these computers are available for use by the general public (with some restrictions) as well as by UA students, faculty and staff). Much of the ILC was constructed underground, underneath the east end of the Mall; the ILC connects to the basement floor of the Main Library through the Information Commons. As part of the project, additional new office space for the Library was constructed on the existing fifth floor.

 

The Science and Engineering Library is in a nearby building from the 1960s that houses volumes and periodicals from those fields. The Music Building (on the northwest quadrant of campus where many of the fine arts disciplines are clustered) houses the Fine Arts Library, including reference collections for architecture, music (including sheet music, recordings and listening stations), and photography. There is a small library at the Center for Creative Photography, also in the fine arts complex, devoted to the art and science of photography. The Law Library is in the law building.

 

The libraries at University of Arizona are expecting a 15 percent budget cut for the 2009 fiscal year. They will begin to explore the possibilities of cutting staff, cutting online modules, and closing some libraries. The biggest threat is the possible closure of 11 libraries. The staff is projected to decline from 180 employees to 155 employees. They also intend to cut face-face instructional program that teaches students in English 101 and 102 how to navigate the library. This will now be taught online.

  

[edit] Athletics

Main article: Arizona Wildcats

Like many large public universities in the U.S., sports are a major activity on campus, and receive a large operating budget. Arizona''''''''''''''''s athletic teams are nicknamed the Wildcats, a name derived from a 1914 football game with then California champions Occidental College, where the L.A. Times asserted that, "the Arizona men showed the fight of wildcats."[25] The University of Arizona participates in the NCAA''''''''''''''''s Division I-A in the Pacific-10 Conference, which it joined in 1978.

  

[edit] Men''''''''''''''''s basketball

Main article: Arizona Wildcats men''''''''''''''''s basketball

The men''''''''''''''''s basketball team has been one of the nation''''''''''''''''s most successful programs since Lute Olson was hired as head coach in 1983, and is still known as a national powerhouse in Division I men''''''''''''''''s basketball.[26] As of 2009, the team has reached the NCAA Tournament 25 consecutive years, which is the longest active and second-longest streak in NCAA history (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill had the longest streak with 27).[27] The Wildcats have reached the Final Four of the NCAA tournament in 1988, 1994, 1997, and 2001. In 1997, Arizona defeated the University of Kentucky, the defending national champions, to win the NCAA National Championship (NCAA Men''''''''''''''''s Division I Basketball Championship) by a score of 84–79 in overtime; Arizona''''''''''''''''s first national championship victory. The 1997 championship team became the first and only in NCAA history to defeat three number-one seeds en route to a national title (Kansas, North Carolina and Kentucky -- the North Carolina game being the final game for longtime UNC head coach Dean Smith). Point guard Miles Simon was chosen as 1997 Final Four MVP (Simon was also an assistant coach under Olson from 2005–08). The Cats also boast the third highest winning percentage over the last twenty years. Arizona has won a total of 21 conference championships in its'''''''''''''''' programs history.

 

The Wildcats play their home games at the McKale Center in Tucson. A number of former Wildcats have gone on to pursue successful professional NBA careers (especially during the Lute Olson era), including Gilbert Arenas, Richard Jefferson, Mike Bibby, Jason Terry, Sean Elliott, Damon Stoudamire, Luke Walton, Hassan Adams, Salim Stoudamire, Andre Iguodala, Channing Frye, Brian Williams (later known as Bison Dele), Sean Rooks, Jud Buechler, Michael Dickerson and Steve Kerr. Kenny Lofton, now best known as a former Major League Baseball star, was a four year letter winner as a Wildcat basketball player (and was on the 1988 Final Four team), before one year on the Arizona baseball team. Another notable former Wildcat basketball player is Eugene Edgerson, who played on the 1997 and 2001 Final Four squads, and is currently one of the primary stars of the Harlem Globetrotters as "Wildkat" Edgerson.

 

Before Lute Olson''''''''''''''''s hire in 1983, Arizona was the first major Division I school to hire an African American head coach in Fred Snowden, in 1972. After a 25-year tenure as Arizona head coach, Olson announced his retirement from the Arizona basketball program in October 2008. After two seasons of using interim coaches, Arizona named Sean Miller, head coach at Xavier University, as its new head basketball coach in April 2009.

 

The football team began at The University of Arizona in 1899 under the nickname "Varsity" (a name kept until the 1914 season when the team was deemed the "Wildcats").[28]

 

The football team was notably successful in the 1990s, under head coach Dick Tomey; his "Desert Swarm" defense was characterized by tough, hard-nosed tactics. In 1993, the team had its first 10-win season and beat the University of Miami Hurricanes in the Fiesta Bowl by a score of 29–0. It was the bowl game''''''''''''''''s only shutout in its then 23-year history. In 1998, the team posted a school-record 12–1 season and made the Holiday Bowl in which it defeated the Nebraska Cornhuskers. Arizona ended that season ranked 4th nationally in the coaches and API poll. The 1998 Holiday Bowl was televised on ESPN and set the now-surpassed record of being the most watched of any bowl game in that network''''''''''''''''s history (the current record belongs to the 2005 Alamo Bowl between Michigan and Nebraska). The program is led by Mike Stoops, brother of Bob Stoops, the head football coach at the University of Oklahoma.

  

[edit] Baseball

Main article: Arizona Wildcats baseball

The baseball team had its first season in 1904. The baseball team has captured three national championship titles in 1976, 1980, and 1986, all coached by Jerry Kindall. Arizona baseball teams have appeared in the NCAA National Championship title series a total of six times, including 1956, 1959, 1963, 1976, 1980, and 1986 (College World Series). The team is currently coached by Andy Lopez; aided by Assistant Coach Mark Wasikowski, Assistant Coach Jeff Casper and Volunteer Assistant Coach Keith Francis. Arizona baseball also has a student section named The Hot Corner. Famous UA baseball alums include current Boston Red Sox manager Terry Francona, Cleveland Indian Kenny Lofton, Yankee Shelley Duncan, Brewers closer Trevor Hoffman, Diamondbacks third-base coach Chip Hale, former 12-year MLB pitcher and current minor league coach Craig Lefferts, longtime MLB standout J. T. Snow, star MLB pitchers Don Lee, Carl Thomas, Mike Paul, Dan Schneider, Rich Hinton and Ed Vosberg, NY Giants slugger Hank Leiber, Yankee catcher Ron Hassey, and Red Sox coach Brad Mills. Former Angels and Cardinals (among others) pitcher Joe Magrane is also a UA alum.

  

[edit] Softball

The Arizona softball team is among the top programs in the country and a perennial powerhouse. The softball team has won eight NCAA Women''''''''''''''''s College World Series titles, in 1991, 1993, 1994, 1996, 1997, 2001, 2006 and 2007 under head coach Mike Candrea (NCAA Softball Championship). Arizona defeated the University of Tennessee in the 2007 National Championship series in Oklahoma City. The team has appeared in the NCAA National Championship in 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 2001, 2002, 2006, and 2007 (a feat second only to UCLA), and has reached the College World Series 19 of the past 20 years. Coach Candrea, along with former Arizona pitcher Jennie Finch, led the 2004 U.S. Olympic softball team to a gold medal in Athens, Greece. The Wildcat softball team plays at Rita Hillenbrand Memorial Stadium.

  

[edit] Men''''''''''''''''s and women''''''''''''''''s golf

The university''''''''''''''''s golf teams have also been notably successful. The men''''''''''''''''s team won a national championship in 1992 (NCAA Division I Men''''''''''''''''s Golf Championships), while the women''''''''''''''''s team won national championships in 1996 and 2000 (NCAA Women''''''''''''''''s Golf Championship).

 

A strong athletic rivalry exists between the University of Arizona and Arizona State University located in Tempe. The UA leads the all-time record against ASU in men''''''''''''''''s basketball (138-73), football (44–35–1), and baseball (224–189–1) as of January 2006. The football rivalry game between the schools is known as "The Duel in the Desert." The trophy awarded after each game, the Territorial Cup, is the nation''''''''''''''''s oldest rivalry trophy, distinguished by the NCAA. Rivalries have also been created with other Pac-10 teams, especially University of California, Los Angeles which has provided a worthy softball rival and was Arizona''''''''''''''''s main basketball rival in the early and mid-1990s.

  

[edit] Mascot

The University mascot is an anthropomorphized wildcat named Wilbur. The identity of Wilbur is kept secret through the year as the mascot appears only in costume. In 1986, Wilbur married his longtime wildcat girlfriend, Wilma. Together, Wilbur and Wilma appear along with the cheerleading squad at most Wildcat sporting events.[29] Wilbur was originally created by Bob White as a cartoon character in the University''''''''''''''''s humor magazine, Kitty Kat. From 1915 through the 1950s the school mascot was a live bobcat, a species known locally as a wildcat. This succession of live mascots were known by the common name of Rufus Arizona, originally named after Rufus von Kleinsmid, president of the university from 1914 to 1921. 1959 marked the creation of the first incarnated Wilbur, when University student John Paquette and his roommate, Dick Heller, came up with idea of creating a costume for a student to wear. Ed Stuckenhoff was chosen to wear the costume at the homecoming game in 1959 against Texas Tech and since then it has become a long-standing tradition. Wilbur will celebrate his 50th birthday in November 2009.

 

Officially implemented in 2003, Zona Zoo is the official student section and student ticketing program for the University of Arizona Athletics. The Zona Zoo program is co-owned by the Associated Students of the University of Arizona (ASUA) and Arizona Athletics, the program is run by a team of spirited individuals called the Zona Zoo Crew. Zona Zoo is one of the largest and most spirited student sections in NCAA Division I Athletics.

 

Notable venues

McKale Center, opened in 1973, is currently used by men''''''''''''''''s and women''''''''''''''''s basketball, women''''''''''''''''s gymnastics, and women''''''''''''''''s volleyball. The official capacity has changed often. The largest crowd to see a game in McKale was 15,176 in 1976 for a game against the University of New Mexico, a main rival during that period. In 2000, the floor in McKale was dubbed Lute Olson Court, for the basketball program''''''''''''''''s winningest coach. During a memorial service in 2001 for Lute''''''''''''''''s wife, Bobbi, who died after a battle with ovarian cancer, the floor was renamed Lute and Bobbi Olson Court. In addition to the playing surface, McKale Center is host to the offices of the UA athletic department. McKale Center is named after J.F. Pop McKale, who was athletic director and coach from 1914 through 1957. Joe Cavaleri ("The Ooh-Aah Man") made his dramatic and inspiring appearances there.

Arizona Stadium, built in 1928 and last expanded in 1976, seats over 56,000 patrons. It hosts American football games and has also been used for university graduations. The turf is bermuda grass, taken from the local Tucson National Golf Club. Arizona football''''''''''''''''s home record is 258-139-12. The largest crowd ever in Arizona Stadium was 59,920 in 1996 for a game against Arizona State University.

Jerry Kindall Field at Frank Sancet Stadium hosts baseball games.

Rita Hillenbrand Memorial Stadium hosts softball games.

 

<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Arizona">en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Arizona</a>

<a target="_blank" href=""></a>

Other stuff I have written about

Dustin Wichterman, Potomac Headwaters Project Coordinator with Trout Unlimited, fishes for brook trout in Thorn Creek in Pendleton County, W.Va., on Oct. 2, 2012. (Photo by Steve Droter/Chesapeake Bay Program)

 

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A photo credit mentioning the Chesapeake Bay Program is mandatory. The photograph may not be manipulated in any way or used in any way that suggests approval or endorsement of the Chesapeake Bay Program. Requestors should also respect the publicity rights of individuals photographed, and seek their consent if necessary.

Volunteer Sarah Krizek participates in the 2016 Project Clean Stream by picking up trash at the Ellen O. Moyer Nature Park at Back Creek in Annapolis, Md., on April 2, 2016. Project Clean Stream is a program of the Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay, and includes dozens of cleanup events across the Chesapeake Bay watershed. (Photo by Will Parson/Chesapeake Bay Program)

 

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A photo credit mentioning the Chesapeake Bay Program is mandatory. The photograph may not be manipulated in any way or used in any way that suggests approval or endorsement of the Chesapeake Bay Program. Requestors should also respect the publicity rights of individuals photographed, and seek their consent if necessary.

Jerry Hassinger tries to identify a fungus on the trunk of a tree at the Ned Smith Center for Nature and Art near Millersburg, Pa., on Oct. 28, 2016. Hassinger is retired from the Pennsyvlania Game Commission and a volunteer at the Center. (Photo by Leslie Boorhem-Stephenson/Chesapeake Bay Program)

 

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To request permission, send an email briefly describing the proposed use to requests@chesapeakebay.net. Please do not attach jpegs. Instead, reference the corresponding Flickr URL of the image.

 

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Skylab, a 100-ton manned orbital scientific space station, is scheduled to be launched and placed in near-Earth orbit early in 1973. The program's nine prime crewmen, selected for the three manned Skylab missions, are pictured with an artist's concept of a completely deployed cluster of the Skylab components in Earth orbit. The first Skylab mission will launch and place in orbit the hardware shown here with the exception of the Apollo-type spacecraft docked at left end. The Command and Service Modules (CSM) will on three occasions in a projected eight-month period go up and dock with the Skylab cluster, thus transporting a fresh crew of three astronauts to conduct several weeks of experimenting and observations. Those manned missions will be known as Skylabs II, III and IV. They have as their crewmen the following astronauts: Skylab II -- Charles Conrad Jr., commander; Joseph P. Kerwin, science pilot; and Paul J. Weitz, pilot. Skylab III -- Alan L. Bean, commander; Owen K. Garriot, science pilot; and Jack R. Lousma, pilot. Skylab IV -- Gerald P. Carr, commander; Edward G. Gibson, science pilot; and William R. Pogue, pilot.

 

Signed by Paul Weitz, Skylab 1 Pilot, and Bruce McCandless II, his back-up for the flight.

 

I think by Charles O. Bennett.

Wetlands line the Pamunkey River in King William County, Va., on Aug. 24, 2018. Wetlands improve water quality by absorbing nutrients, and can serve as a buffer against intense storms. (Photo by Will Parson/Chesapeake Bay Program)

 

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NASA's Journey to Mars is turning science fiction into science fact. Space materials, deep space propulsion, long-term Mars habitats, and human factors all are in play in NASA labs and space industry factories around the U.S. A panel of NASA and industry experts showcased the technologies and capabilities already being built for deep space human exploration, and contrasted NASA’s plans with the exploration path laid out in “The Martian.”

  

Panelists: NASA SLS Program's Kimberly Robinson, Sharon Cobb, Chris Crumbly; NASA Johnson Space Center's + former astronaut Jan Davis; NASA astronaut Jeanette Epps.

A member of U.S. Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services sets a nutria trap at Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge in Dorchester County, Md., on Dec. 6, 2011. The landowner contacted the Chesapeake Bay Nutria Eradication Project after noticing signs of nutria on the property. (Photo by Caitlin Finnerty/Chesapeake Bay Program)

 

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Pasted from Wikipedia:

 

[[[

 

The Bell-Boeing V-22 Osprey is a multi-mission, military, tiltrotor aircraft with both a vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL), and short takeoff and landing (STOL) capability. It is designed to combine the functionality of a conventional helicopter with the long-range, high-speed cruise performance of a turboprop aircraft.

 

The V-22 originated from the U.S. Department of Defense Joint-service Vertical take-off/landing Experimental (JVX) aircraft program started in 1981. It was developed jointly by the Bell Helicopter, and Boeing Helicopters team, known as Bell Boeing, which produce the aircraft.[4] The V-22 first flew in 1989, and began years of flight testing and design alterations.

 

The United States Marine Corps began crew training for the Osprey in 2000, and fielded it in 2007. The Osprey's other operator, the U.S. Air Force fielded their version of the tiltrotor in 2009. Since entering service with the U.S. Marine Corps and Air Force, the Osprey has been deployed for combat operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

 

Contents

 

• 1 Development

•• 1.1 Early development

•• 1.2 Flight testing and design changes

•• 1.3 Controversy

•• 1.4 Recent development

• 2 Design

• 3 Operational history

•• 3.1 US Marine Corps

•• 3.2 US Air Force

•• 3.3 Potential operators

• 4 Variants

• 5 Operators

• 6 Notable accidents

• 7 Specifications (MV-22B)

• 8 Notable appearances in media

• 9 See also

• 10 References

• 11 External links

 

Development

 

Early development

 

The failure of the Iran hostage rescue mission in 1980 demonstrated to the United States military a need[5] for "a new type of aircraft, that could not only take off and land vertically but also could carry combat troops, and do so at speed."[6] The U.S. Department of Defense began the Joint-service Vertical take-off/landing Experimental (JVX) aircraft program in 1981, under U.S. Army leadership. Later the U.S. Navy/Marine Corps took the lead.[7][8] The JVX combined requirements from the Marine Corps, Air Force, Army and Navy.[9][10] A request for proposals (RFP) was issued in December 1982 for JVX preliminary design work. Interest in the program was expressed by Aérospatiale, Bell Helicopter, Boeing Vertol, Grumman, Lockheed, and Westland. The DoD pushed for contractors to form teams. Bell partnered with Boeing Vertol. The Bell Boeing team submitted a proposal for a enlarged version of the Bell XV-15 prototype on 17 February 1983. This was the only proposal received and a preliminary design contract was awarded on 26 April 1983.[11][12]

 

The JVX aircraft was designated V-22 Osprey on 15 January 1985; by March that same year the first six prototypes were being produced, and Boeing Vertol was expanded to deal with the project workload.[13][14] Work has been split evenly between Bell and Boeing. Bell Helicopter manufactures and integrates the wing, nacelles, rotors, drive system, tail surfaces, and aft ramp, as well as integrates the Rolls-Royce engines and performs final assembly. Boeing Helicopters manufactures and integrates the fuselage, cockpit, avionics, and flight controls.[4][15] The USMC variant of the Osprey received the MV-22 designation and the Air Force variant received CV-22; reversed from normal procedure to prevent Marine Ospreys from having a conflicting designation with aircraft carriers (CV).[16] Full-scale development of the V-22 tilt-rotor aircraft began in 1986.[2] On 3 May 1986 the Bell-Boeing partnership was awarded a $1.714 billion contract for V-22 aircraft by the Navy, thus at this point the project had acquisition plans with all four arms of the U.S. military.[17]

 

The first V-22 was rolled out with significant media attention in May 1988.[18][19] However the project suffered several political blows. Firstly in the same year, the Army left the program, citing a need to focus its budget on more immediate aviation programs.[20] The project also faced considerable dialogue in the Senate, surviving two votes that both could have resulted in cancellation.[21][22] Despite the Senate's decision, the Department of Defense instructed the Navy not to spend more money on the Osprey.[23] At the same time, the Bush administration sought the cancellation of the project.[23]

 

Flight testing and design changes

 

The first of six MV-22 prototypes first flew on 19 March 1989 in the helicopter mode,[24] and on 14 September 1989 as a fixed-wing plane.[25] The third and fourth prototypes successfully completed the Osprey's first Sea Trials on the USS Wasp in December 1990.[26] However, the fourth and fifth prototypes crashed in 1991-92.[27] Flight tests were resumed in August 1993 after changes were incorporated in the prototypes.[2] From October 1992 until April 1993, Bell and Boeing redesigned the V-22 to reduce empty weight, simplify manufacture and reduce production costs. This redesigned version became the B-model.[28]

 

Flight testing of four full-scale development V-22s began in early 1997 when the first pre-production V-22 was delivered to the Naval Air Warfare Test Center, Naval Air Station Patuxent River, Maryland. The first EMD flight took place on 5 February 1997. The first of four low rate initial production aircraft, ordered on 28 April 1997, was delivered on 27 May 1999. Osprey number 10 completed the program's second Sea Trials, this time from the USS Saipan in January 1999.[2] During external load testing in April 1999, Boeing used a V-22 to lift and transport the M777 howitzer.[29] In 2000, Boeing announced that the V-22 would be fitted with a nose-mounted GAU-19 Gatling gun,[30] but the GAU-19 gun was later canceled.[31]

 

In 2000, there were two further fatal crashes, killing a total of 19 Marines, and the production was again halted while the cause of these crashes was investigated and various parts were redesigned.[32] The V-22 completed its final operational evaluation in June 2005. The evaluation was deemed successful; events included long range deployments, high altitude, desert and shipboard operations. The problems identified in various accidents had been addressed.[33]

 

Controversy

 

The V-22's development process has been long and controversial, partly due to its large cost increases.[34] When the development budget, first planned for $2.5 billion in 1986, increased to a projected $30 billion in 1988, then-Defense Secretary Dick Cheney tried to zero out its funding. He was eventually overruled by Congress.[32] As of 2008, $27 billion have been spent on the Osprey program and another $27.2 billion will be required to complete planned production numbers by the end of the program.[2]

 

The V-22 squadron's former commander at Marine Corps Air Station New River, Lt. Colonel Odin Lieberman, was relieved of duty in 2001 after allegations that he instructed his unit that they needed to falsify maintenance records to make the plane appear more reliable.[2][35] Three officers were later implicated in the falsification scandal.[34]

 

The aircraft is incapable of autorotation, and is therefore unable to land safely in helicopter mode if both engines fail. A director of the Pentagon's testing office in 2005 said that if the Osprey loses power while flying like a helicopter below 1,600 feet (490 m), emergency landings "are not likely to be survivable". But Captain Justin (Moon) McKinney, a V-22 pilot, says that this will not be a problem, "We can turn it into a plane and glide it down, just like a C-130".[31] A complete loss of power would require the failure of both engines, as a drive shaft connects the nacelles through the wing; one engine can power both proprotors.[36] While vortex ring state (VRS) contributed to a deadly V-22 accident, the aircraft is less susceptible to the condition than conventional helicopters and recovers more quickly.[5] The Marines now train new pilots in the recognition of and recovery from VRS and have instituted operational envelope limits and instrumentation to help pilots avoid VRS conditions.[32][37]

 

It was planned in 2000 to equip all V-22s with a nose-mounted Gatling gun, to provide "the V-22 with a strong defensive firepower capability to greatly increase the aircraft's survivability in hostile actions."[30] The nose gun project was canceled however, leading to criticism by retired Marine Corps Commandant General James L. Jones, who is not satisfied with the current V-22 armament.[31] A belly-mounted turret was later installed on some of the first V-22s sent to the War in Afghanistan in 2009.[38]

 

With the first combat deployment of the MV-22 in October 2007, Time Magazine ran an article condemning the aircraft as unsafe, overpriced, and completely inadequate.[31] The Marine Corps, however, responded with the assertion that much of the article's data were dated, obsolete, inaccurate, and reflected expectations that ran too high for any new field of aircraft.[39]

 

Recent development

 

On 28 September 2005, the Pentagon formally approved full-rate production for the V-22.[40] The plan is to boost production from 11 a year to between 24 and 48 a year by 2012. Of the 458 total planned, 360 are for the Marine Corps, 48 for the Navy, and 50 for the Air Force at an average cost of $110 million per aircraft, including development costs.[2] The V-22 had an incremental flyaway cost of $70 million per aircraft in 2007,[3] but the Navy hopes to shave about $10 million off that cost after a five-year production contract starts in 2008.[41]

 

The Bell-Boeing Joint Project Office in Amarillo, Texas will design a new integrated avionics processor to resolve electronics obsolescence issues and add new network capabilities.[42]

 

Design

 

The Osprey is the world's first production tiltrotor aircraft, with one three-bladed proprotor, turboprop engine, and transmission nacelle mounted on each wingtip. It is classified as a powered lift aircraft by the Federal Aviation Administration.[43] For takeoff and landing, it typically operates as a helicopter with the nacelles vertical (rotors horizontal). Once airborne, the nacelles rotate forward 90° in as little as 12 seconds for horizontal flight, converting the V-22 to a more fuel-efficient, higher-speed turboprop airplane. STOL rolling-takeoff and landing capability is achieved by having the nacelles tilted forward up to 45°. For compact storage and transport, the V-22's wing rotates to align, front-to-back, with the fuselage. The proprotors can also fold in a sequence taking 90 seconds.[44]

 

Most Osprey missions will use fixed wing flight 75 percent or more of the time, reducing wear and tear on the aircraft and reducing operational costs.[45] This fixed wing flight is higher than typical helicopter missions allowing longer range line-of-sight communications and so improved command and control.[2] Boeing has stated the V-22 design loses 10% of its vertical lift over a Tiltwing design when operating in helicopter mode because of airflow resistance due to the wings, but that the Tiltrotor design has better short takeoff and landing performance.[46]

 

The V-22 is equipped with a glass cockpit, which incorporates four Multi-function displays (MFDs) and one shared Central Display Unit (CDU), allowing the pilots to display a variety of images including: digimaps centered or decentered on current position, FLIR imagery, primary flight instruments, navigation (TACAN, VOR, ILS, GPS, INS), and system status. The flight director panel of the Cockpit Management System (CMS) allows for fully-coupled (aka: autopilot) functions which will take the aircraft from forward flight into a 50-foot hover with no pilot interaction other than programming the system.[47] The glass cockpit of the canceled CH-46X was derived from the V-22.[48]

 

The V-22 is a fly-by-wire aircraft with triple-redundant flight control systems.[49] With the nacelles pointing straight up in conversion mode at 90° the flight computers command the aircraft to fly like a helicopter, with cyclic forces being applied to a conventional swashplate at the rotor hub. With the nacelles in airplane mode (0°) the flaperons, rudder, and elevator fly the aircraft like an airplane. This is a gradual transition and occurs over the rotation range of the nacelles. The lower the nacelles, the greater effect of the airplane-mode control surfaces.[50] The nacelles can rotate past vertical to 97.5° for rearward flight.[51][52]

 

The Osprey can be armed with one M240 7.62x51mm NATO (.308 in caliber) or M2 .50 in caliber (12.7 mm) machine gun on the loading ramp, that can be fired rearward when the ramp is lowered. A GAU-19 three-barrel .50 in gatling gun mounted below the V-22's nose has also been studied for future upgrade.[31][53] BAE Systems developed a remotely operated turreted weapons system for the V-22,[54] which was installed on half of the first V-22s deployed to Afghanistan in 2009.[38] The 7.62 mm belly gun turret is remotely operated by a gunner inside the aircraft, who acquires targets with a separate pod using color television and forward looking infrared imagery.

 

U.S. Naval Air Systems Command is working on upgrades to increase the maximum speed from 250 knots (460 km/h; 290 mph) to 270 knots (500 km/h; 310 mph), increase helicopter mode altitude limit from 10,000 feet (3,000 m) to 12,000 feet (3,700 m) or 14,000 feet (4,300 m), and increase lift performance.[55]

 

Operational history

 

US Marine Corps

 

Marine Corps crew training on the Osprey has been conducted by VMMT-204 since March 2000. On 3 June 2005, the Marine Corps helicopter squadron Marine Medium Helicopter 263 (HMM-263), stood down to begin the process of transitioning to the MV-22 Osprey.[56] On 8 December 2005, Lieutenant General Amos, commander of the II MEF, accepted the delivery of the first fleet of MV-22s, delivered to HMM-263. The unit reactivated on 3 March 2006 as the first MV-22 squadron and was redesignated VMM-263. On 31 August 2006, VMM-162 (the former HMM-162) followed suit. On 23 March 2007, HMM-266 became Marine Medium Tiltrotor Squadron 266 (VMM-266) at Marine Corps Air Station New River, North Carolina.[57]

 

The Osprey has been replacing existing CH-46 Sea Knight squadrons.[58] The MV-22 reached initial operational capability (IOC) with the U.S. Marine Corps on 13 June 2007.[1] On 10 July 2007 an MV-22 Osprey landed aboard the Royal Navy aircraft carrier, HMS Illustrious in the Atlantic Ocean. This marked the first time a V-22 had landed on any non-U.S. vessel.[59]

 

On 13 April 2007, the U.S. Marine Corps announced that it would be sending ten V-22 aircraft to Iraq, the Osprey's first combat deployment. Marine Corps Commandant, General James Conway, indicated that over 150 Marines would accompany the Osprey set for September deployment to Al-Asad Airfield.[60][61] On 17 September 2007, ten MV-22Bs of VMM-263 left for Iraq aboard the USS Wasp. The decision to use a ship rather than use the Osprey's self-deployment capability was made because of concerns over icing during the North Atlantic portion of the trip, lack of available KC-130s for mid-air refueling, and the availability of the USS Wasp.[62]

 

The Osprey has provided support in Iraq, racking up some 2,000 flight hours over three months with a mission capable availability rate of 68.1% as of late-January 2008.[63] They are primarily used in Iraq's western Anbar province for routine cargo and troop movements, and also for riskier "aero-scout" missions. General David Petraeus, the top U.S. military commander in Iraq, used one to fly around Iraq on Christmas Day 2007 to visit troops.[64] Then-presidential candidate Barack Obama also flew in Ospreys during his high profile 2008 tour of Iraq.[65]

 

The only major problem has been obtaining the necessary spare parts to maintain the aircraft.[66] The V-22 had flown 3,000 sorties totaling 5,200 hours in Iraq as of July 2008.[67] USMC leadership expect to deploy MV-22s to Afghanistan in 2009.[66][68] General George J. Trautman, III praised the increased range of the V-22 over the legacy helicopters in Iraq and said that "it turned his battle space from the size of Texas into the size of Rhode Island."[69]

 

Naval Air Systems Command has devised a temporary fix for sailors to place portable heat shields under Osprey engines to prevent damage to the decks of some of the Navy's smaller amphibious ships, but they determined that a long term solution to the problem would require these decks be redesigned with heat resistant deck coatings, passive thermal barriers and changes in ship structure in order to operate V-22s and F-35Bs.[70]

 

A Government Accountability Office study reported that by January 2009 the Marines had 12 MV-22s operating in Iraq and they managed to successfully complete all assigned missions. The same report found that the V-22 deployments had mission capable rates averaging 57% to 68% and an overall full mission capable rate of only 6%. It also stated that the aircraft had shown weakness in situational awareness, maintenance, shipboard operations and the ability to transport troops and external cargo.[71] That study also concluded that the "deployments confirmed that the V-22’s enhanced speed and range enable personnel and internal cargo to be transported faster and farther than is possible with the legacy helicopters it is replacing".[71]

 

The MV-22 saw its first offensive combat mission, Operation Cobra's Anger on 4 December 2009. Ospreys assisted in inserting 1,000 Marines and 150 Afghan troops into the Now Zad Valley of Helmand Province in southern Afghanistan to disrupt communication and supply lines of the Taliban.[38] In January 2010 the MV-22 Osprey is being sent to Haiti as part of Operation Unified Response relief efforts after the earthquake there. This will be the first use the Marine V-22 in a humanitarian mission.[72]

 

US Air Force

 

The Air Force's first operational CV-22 Osprey was delivered to the 58th Special Operations Wing (58th SOW) at Kirtland Air Force Base, New Mexico on 20 March 2006. This and subsequent aircraft will become part of the 58th SOW's fleet of aircraft used for training pilots and crew members for special operations use.[73] On 16 November 2006, the Air Force officially accepted the CV-22 in a ceremony conducted at Hurlburt Field, Florida.[74]

 

The US Air Force's first operational deployment of the Osprey sent four CV-22s to Mali in November 2008 in support of Exercise Flintlock. The CV-22s flew nonstop from Hurlburt Field, Florida with in-flight refueling.[5] AFSOC declared that the 8th Special Operations Squadron reached Initial Operational Capability on 16 March 2009, with six of its planned nine CV-22s operational.[75]

 

In June 2009, CV-22s of the 8th Special Operations Squadron delivered 43,000 pounds (20,000 kg) of humanitarian supplies to remote villages in Honduras that were not accessible by conventional vehicles.[76] In November 2009, the 8th SO Squadron and its six CV-22s returned from a three-month deployment in Iraq.[77]

 

The first possible combat loss of an Osprey occurred on 9 April, 2010, as a CV-22 went down near Qalat, Zabul Province, Afghanistan, killing four.[78][79]

 

Potential operators

 

In 1999 the V-22 was studied for use in the United Kingdom's Royal Navy,[80] it has been raised several times as a candidate for the role of Maritime Airborne Surveillance and Control (MASC).[81]

 

Israel had shown interest in the purchase of MV-22s, but no order was placed.[82][83] Flightglobal reported in late 2009 that Israel has decided to wait for the CH-53K instead.[84]

 

The V-22 Osprey is a candidate for the Norwegian All Weather Search and Rescue Helicopter (NAWSARH) that is planned to replace the Westland Sea King Mk.43B of the Royal Norwegian Air Force in 2015.[85] The other candidates for the NAWSARH contract of 10-12 helicopters are AgustaWestland AW101 Merlin, Eurocopter EC225, NHIndustries NH90 and Sikorsky S-92.[86]

 

Bell Boeing has made an unsolicited offer of the V-22 for US Army medical evacuation needs.[87] However the Joint Personnel Recovery Agency issued a report that said that a common helicopter design would be needed for both combat recovery and medical evacuation and that the V-22 would not be suitable for recovery missions because of the difficulty of hoist operations and lack of self-defense capabilities.[88]

 

The US Navy remains a potential user of the V-22, but its role and mission with the Navy remains unclear. The latest proposal is to replace the C-2 Greyhound with the V-22 in the fleet logistics role. The V-22 would have the advantage of being able to land on and support non-carriers with rapid delivery of supplies and people between the ships of a taskforce or to ships on patrol beyond helicopter range.[89] Loren B. Thompson of the Lexington Institute has suggested V-22s for use in combat search and rescue and Marine One VIP transport, which also need replacement aircraft.[90]

 

Variants

  

• V-22A 

•• Pre-production full-scale development aircraft used for flight testing. These are unofficially considered A-variants after 1993 redesign.[91]

  

• HV-22 

•• The U.S. Navy considered an HV-22 to provide combat search and rescue, delivery and retrieval of special warfare teams along with fleet logistic support transport. However, it chose the MH-60S for this role in 1992.[92]

  

• SV-22 

•• The proposed anti-submarine warfare Navy variant. The Navy studied the SV-22 in the 1980s to replace S-3 and SH-2 aircraft.[93]

  

• MV-22B 

•• Basic U.S. Marine Corps transport; original requirement for 552 (now 360). The Marine Corps is the lead service in the development of the V-22 Osprey. The Marine Corps variant, the MV-22B, is an assault transport for troops, equipment and supplies, capable of operating from ships or from expeditionary airfields ashore. It is replacing the Marine Corps' CH-46E[57] and CH-53D.[94]

  

• CV-22B 

•• Air Force variant for the U.S. Special Operations Command (USSOCOM). It will conduct long-range, special operations missions, and is equipped with extra fuel tanks and terrain-following radar.[95][96]

 

Operators

 

•  United States

 

• United States Air Force

 

•• 8th Special Operations Squadron (8 SOS) at Hurlburt Field, Florida

•• 71st Special Operations Squadron (71 SOS) at Kirtland Air Force Base, New Mexico

•• 20th Special Operations Squadron (20 SOS) at Cannon Air Force Base, New Mexico

 

• United States Marine Corps

 

•• VMM-161

•• VMM-162

•• VMM-261

•• VMM-263

•• VMM-264

•• VMM-266

•• VMM-365

•• VMMT-204 - Training squadron

•• VMX-22 - Marine Tiltrotor Operational Test and Evaluation Squadron

 

Notable accidents

 

Main article: Accidents and incidents involving the V-22 Osprey

 

From 1991 to 2000 there were four significant crashes, and a total of 30 fatalities, during testing.[32] Since becoming operational in 2007, the V-22 has had one possible combat loss due to an unknown cause, no losses due to accidents, and seven other notable, but minor, incidents.

 

• On 11 June 1991, a mis-wired flight control system led to two minor injuries when the left nacelle struck the ground while the aircraft was hovering 15 feet (4.6 m) in the air, causing it to bounce and catch fire.[97]

 

• On 20 July 1992, a leaking gearbox led to a fire in the right nacelle, causing the aircraft to drop into the Potomac River in front of an audience of Congressmen and other government officials at Quantico, killing all seven on board and grounding the aircraft for 11 months.[98]

 

• On 8 April 2000, a V-22 loaded with Marines to simulate a rescue, attempted to land at Marana Northwest Regional Airport in Arizona, stalled when its right rotor entered vortex ring state, rolled over, crashed, and exploded, killing all 19 on board.[37]

 

• On 11 December 2000, after a catastrophic hydraulic leak and subsequent software instrument failure, a V-22 fell 1,600 feet (490 m) into a forest in Jacksonville, North Carolina, killing all four aboard. This caused the Marine Corps to ground their fleet of eight V-22s, the second grounding that year.[99][100]

 

Specifications (MV-22B)

 

Data from Boeing Integrated Defense Systems,[101] Naval Air Systems Command,[102] US Air Force CV-22 fact sheet,[95] Norton,[103] and Bell[104]

 

General characteristics

 

• Crew: Four (pilot, copilot and two flight engineers)

• Capacity: 24 troops (seated), 32 troops (floor loaded) or up to 15,000 lb (6,800 kg) of cargo (dual hook)

• Length: 57 ft 4 in (17.5 m)

• Rotor diameter: 38 ft 0 in (11.6 m)

• Wingspan: 45 ft 10 in (14 m)

• Width with rotors: 84 ft 7 in (25.8 m)

• Height: 22 ft 1 in/6.73 m; overall with nacelles vertical (17 ft 11 in/5.5 m; at top of tailfins)

• Disc area: 2,268 ft² (212 m²)

• Wing area: 301.4 ft² (28 m²)

• Empty weight: 33,140 lb (15,032 kg)

• Loaded weight: 47,500 lb (21,500 kg)

• Max takeoff weight: 60,500 lb (27,400 kg)

• Powerplant: 2× Rolls-Royce Allison T406/AE 1107C-Liberty turboshafts, 6,150 hp (4,590 kW) each

 

Performance

 

• Maximum speed: 250 knots (460 km/h, 290 mph) at sea level / 305 kn (565 km/h; 351 mph) at 15,000 ft (4,600 m)[105]

• Cruise speed: 241 knots (277 mph, 446 km/h) at sea level

• Range: 879 nmi (1,011 mi, 1,627 km)

• Combat radius: 370 nmi (426 mi, 685 km)

• Ferry range: 1,940 nmi (with auxiliary internal fuel tanks)

• Service ceiling: 26,000 ft (7,925 m)

• Rate of climb: 2,320 ft/min (11.8 m/s)

• Disc loading: 20.9 lb/ft² at 47,500 lb GW (102.23 kg/m²)

• Power/mass: 0.259 hp/lb (427 W/kg)

 

Armament

 

• 1× M240 machine gun on ramp, optional

 

Notable appearances in media

 

Main article: Aircraft in fiction#V-22 Osprey

 

See also

 

• Elizabeth A. Okoreeh-Baah, USMC - first female to pilot a V-22 Osprey

 

Related development

 

• Bell XV-15[106]

• Bell/Agusta BA609

• Bell Boeing Quad TiltRotor

 

Comparable aircraft

 

• Canadair CL-84

• LTV XC-142

 

Related lists

 

• List of military aircraft of the United States

• List of VTOL aircraft

 

References

 

Bibliography

 

• Markman, Steve and Bill Holder. "Bell/Boeing V-22 Osprey Tilt-Engine VTOL Transport (U.S.A.)". Straight Up: A History of Vertical Flight. Schiffer Publishing, 2000. ISBN 0-7643-1204-9.

• Norton, Bill. Bell Boeing V-22 Osprey, Tiltrotor Tactical Transport. Midland Publishing, 2004. ISBN 1-85780-165-2.

 

External links

 

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: V-22 Osprey

 

• Official Boeing V-22 site

• Official Bell V-22 site

• V-22 Osprey web, and www.history.navy.mil/planes/v-22.html

• CV-22 fact sheet on USAF site

• www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/aircraft/v-22.htm

• www.airforce-technology.com/projects/osprey/

• Onward and Upward

• "Flight of the Osprey", US Navy video of V-22 operations

 

]]]

 

Penn Theatre Arts Fall 2015 Mainstage Production

 

Directed by Dr. James F. Schlatter.

 

The Theatre Arts Program’s fall production, BURY THE DEAD, written by Irwin Shaw in 1936, is set “in the second year of the war that is to begin tomorrow night.” The scene is an unnamed battlefield somewhere in the world that also serves as the gravesite for six dead American soldiers. About to be interred, the six young soldiers stand up in their shared grave and plead not to be buried. This crisis is the focus of Shaw’s harrowing and deeply moving and provocative play, directed by Theatre Arts faculty member, Dr. James F. Schlatter, Can a war ever end if the dead won’t be buried? The play will be performed by an ensemble company.

 

Performances:

November 18–21, 7:00pm

@ Annenberg Center Live, Bruce Montgomery Theatre

 

theatre.sas.upenn.edu/events/fall-mainstage-production-bu...

 

provost.upenn.edu/initiatives/arts/stories/2015/11/16/the...

 

Riprap and bulkheads harden a shoreline along Edgemere, Md., near North Point State Park in Baltimore County, Md., on June 27, 2016. Hardened shorelines eliminate the shallow habitat required by many of the small fish and invertebrates that trophy fish like striped bass eat, and can also make it hard for underwater grasses to take root in the turbulent waves reflected off the hard surface. (Photo by Will Parson/Chesapeake Bay Program with aerial support by LightHawk)

 

USAGE REQUEST INFORMATION

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A photo credit mentioning the Chesapeake Bay Program is mandatory. The photograph may not be manipulated in any way or used in any way that suggests approval or endorsement of the Chesapeake Bay Program. Requestors should also respect the publicity rights of individuals photographed, and seek their consent if necessary.

Ceramic parchment, a wood-eating fungus, grows on a fallen tree at the Ned Smith Center for Nature and Art near Millersburg, Pa., on Oct. 28, 2016. Fungi play a major role in regenerating the forest by digesting fallen trees and plant matter, effectively recycling the nutrients back into the soil. (Photo by Leslie Boorhem-Stephenson/Chesapeake Bay Program)

 

USAGE REQUEST INFORMATION

The Chesapeake Bay Program's photographic archive is available for media and non-commercial use at no charge.

 

To request permission, send an email briefly describing the proposed use to requests@chesapeakebay.net. Please do not attach jpegs. Instead, reference the corresponding Flickr URL of the image.

 

A photo credit mentioning the Chesapeake Bay Program is mandatory. The photograph may not be manipulated in any way or used in any way that suggests approval or endorsement of the Chesapeake Bay Program. Requestors should also respect the publicity rights of individuals photographed, and seek their consent if necessary.

Dan Small of Washington College leads a planting of bayberry in a strip between two agricultural fields at Chino Farms in Queen Anne's County, Md., on April 13, 2016. When the plants mature they will provide shelter habitat for northern bobwhite quail. (Photo by Will Parson/Chesapeake Bay Program)

 

USAGE REQUEST INFORMATION

The Chesapeake Bay Program's photographic archive is available for media and non-commercial use at no charge. To request permission, send an email briefly describing the proposed use to requests@chesapeakebay.net. Please do not attach jpegs. Instead, reference the corresponding Flickr URL of the image.

 

A photo credit mentioning the Chesapeake Bay Program is mandatory. The photograph may not be manipulated in any way or used in any way that suggests approval or endorsement of the Chesapeake Bay Program. Requestors should also respect the publicity rights of individuals photographed, and seek their consent if necessary.

With more than 12 times the thrust produced by a Boeing 747 jet aircraft, the Constellation Program's Ares I-X test rocket roars off Launch Complex 39B at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The rocket produces 2.96 million pounds of thrust at liftoff and goes supersonic in 39 seconds. Liftoff of the 6-minute flight test was at 11:30 a.m. EDT Oct. 28. This was the first launch from Kennedy's pads of a vehicle other than the space shuttle since the Apollo Program's Saturn rockets were retired. The parts used to make the Ares I-X booster flew on 30 different shuttle missions ranging from STS-29 in 1989 to STS-106 in 2000. The data returned from more than 700 sensors throughout the rocket will be used to refine the design of future launch vehicles and bring NASA one step closer to reaching its exploration goals.

 

Image credit: NASA/Jim Grossmann

 

Original image:

mediaarchive.ksc.nasa.gov/detail.cfm?mediaid=43935

 

More about Ares I-X: www.nasa.gov/aresIX

 

p.s. You can see all of the Ares photos in the Ares Group in Flickr at: www.flickr.com/groups/ares/ We'd love to have you as a member!

Bearded tooth, a wood-eating fungus, grows at the base of a tree trunk at the Ned Smith Center for Nature and Art near Millersburg, Pa., on Oct. 28, 2016. Fungi play a major role in regenerating the forest by digesting fallen trees and plant matter, effectively recycling the nutrients back into the soil. (Photo by Leslie Boorhem-Stephenson/Chesapeake Bay Program)

 

USAGE REQUEST INFORMATION

The Chesapeake Bay Program's photographic archive is available for media and non-commercial use at no charge.

 

To request permission, send an email briefly describing the proposed use to requests@chesapeakebay.net. Please do not attach jpegs. Instead, reference the corresponding Flickr URL of the image.

 

A photo credit mentioning the Chesapeake Bay Program is mandatory. The photograph may not be manipulated in any way or used in any way that suggests approval or endorsement of the Chesapeake Bay Program. Requestors should also respect the publicity rights of individuals photographed, and seek their consent if necessary.

The 2016 Chesapeake Executive Council meeting is held on Oct. 4, 2016 at the Blandy Experimental Farm in Boyce, Virginia. It was announced that Pennsylvania will have $28 million in the next year to combat agricultural pollution, with $12.7 million coming from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, $4 million from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and $11.8 coming mostly from shifts within the Pennsylvania budget. (Photo by Leslie Boorhem-Stephenson/Chesapeake Bay Program)

 

USAGE REQUEST INFORMATION

The Chesapeake Bay Program's photographic archive is available for media and non-commercial use at no charge.

 

To request permission, send an email briefly describing the proposed use to requests@chesapeakebay.net. Please do not attach jpegs. Instead, reference the corresponding Flickr URL of the image.

 

A photo credit mentioning the Chesapeake Bay Program is mandatory. The photograph may not be manipulated in any way or used in any way that suggests approval or endorsement of the Chesapeake Bay Program. Requestors should also respect the publicity rights of individuals photographed, and seek their consent if necessary.

Washington Regional Alcohol Program's Chooser Cruiser uses a donated ex-Red Top Cab Ford Crown Victoria and a light bar and other markings from the Arlington County Police to advertise Sober Ride®. Crop. Derived from a Moc by Spencer Rezkalla. [α900-05939]

Chief Science Officer, OrbitBeyond, Jon Morse speaks about their lunar lander with, from left to right, NASA Press Officer, Felicia Chou; NASA Associate Administrator, Science Mission Directorate, Thomas Zurbuchen; Astrobotic Mission Director, Sharad Bhaskaran; Astrobotic CEO, John Thornton; Chairman of the Board of Intuitive Machines, Kam Ghaffarian; VP of Research and Development of Intuitive Machines, Tim Crain; President and CEO of OrbitBeyond, Siba Padhi, Friday, May 31, 2019, at Goddard Space Flight Center in Md. Astrobotic, Intuitive Machines, and OrbitBeyond have been selected to provide the first lunar landers for the Artemis program's lunar surface exploration. Photo credit: (NASA/Aubrey Gemignani)

A veteran wildland firefighter rappeller stands ready, during the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) U.S. Forest Service (USFS) National Helicopter Rappel Program’s Rappel Academy at Salmon Air Base in Salmon, ID on Tuesday, May 13, 2014. From May 12, 2014, 72 veteran rappellers from all over the nation, 30 support staff, and three helicopters with flight crews attend the training at Salmon Air Base. Participants will rappel into the Perreau Creek area. The annual training is delivered in accordance with the National Rappel Operations Guide; strengthen leadership, teamwork, and communications within the rappel community, and produces quality aerial delivered firefighters for use in fire and aviation operations. The USDA Forest Service National Helicopter Rappel Program’s primary mission is initial attack. Rappel crews may be utilized for large fire support, all hazard incident operations, and resource management objectives. USDA Photo by Lance Cheung.

Florence Shelly Preserve in Susquehanna County, Pa., on Aug. 2, 2016. The 357-acre preserve is owned by the Nature Conservancy and features forest, fields, a stream, and glacial pond surrounded by a floating bog. (Photo by Will Parson/Chesapeake Bay Program)

 

USAGE REQUEST INFORMATION

The Chesapeake Bay Program's photographic archive is available for media and non-commercial use at no charge. To request permission, send an email briefly describing the proposed use to requests@chesapeakebay.net. Please do not attach jpegs. Instead, reference the corresponding Flickr URL of the image.

 

A photo credit mentioning the Chesapeake Bay Program is mandatory. The photograph may not be manipulated in any way or used in any way that suggests approval or endorsement of the Chesapeake Bay Program. Requestors should also respect the publicity rights of individuals photographed, and seek their consent if necessary.

A student in the Infantry Internship Platoon Commander Program carries sandbags to build observation posts and defensive position around the living quarters as part the program’s exercise force posture at the Infantry School, Combat Training Center at Canadian Forces Base Gagetown, New-Brunswick, September 4, 2020.

 

Corporal LeBlanc M, Infantry School CTC

20200904GN49I024P005

 

Un étudiant du programme de stage de commandant de peloton d’infanterie transporte des sacs de sable pour construire des postes d’observation et une position défensive autour des quartiers dans le cadre d’un exercice de posture de la force à l’École d’infanterie du Centre d’instruction au combat, à la Base des Forces canadiennes Gagetown (Nouveau-Brunswick), le 4 septembre 2020.

 

Caporal LeBlanc M, École d’infanterie CIC

20200904GN49I024P005

 

Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin [nb 1] (9 March 1934 – 27 March 1968) was a Soviet Air Forces pilot and cosmonaut who became the first human to journey into outer space, achieving a major milestone in the Space Race; his capsule Vostok 1 completed one orbit of Earth on 12 April 1961. Gagarin became an international celebrity and was awarded many medals and titles, including Hero of the Soviet Union, his nation's highest honour.

 

Vostok 1 was Gagarin's only spaceflight but he served as the backup crew to the Soyuz 1 mission, which ended in a fatal crash, killing his friend and fellow cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov. Gagarin later served as the deputy training director of the Cosmonaut Training Centre, which was subsequently named after him. He was elected as a deputy to the Soviet of the Union in 1962 and then to the Soviet of Nationalities, respectively the lower and upper chambers of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union. Gagarin died in 1968 when the MiG-15 training jet he was piloting with his flight instructor Vladimir Seryogin crashed near the town of Kirzhach.

Contents

 

1 Early life and education

2 Soviet Air Force service

3 Soviet space program

3.1 Selection and training

3.2 Vostok 1

4 After the Vostok 1 flight

5 Personal life

6 Death

7 Awards and honours

7.1 Medals and orders of merit

7.2 Tributes

7.3 Statues and monuments

7.4 50th anniversary

8 See also

9 Notes

10 References

10.1 Sources

11 Further reading

12 External links

 

Early life and education

 

Yuri Gagarin was born 9 March 1934 in the village of Klushino,[1] near Gzhatsk (renamed Gagarin in 1968 after his death).[2] His parents worked on a collective farm:[3] Alexey Ivanovich Gagarin as a carpenter and Anna Timofeyevna Gagarina as a dairy farmer.[nb 2][4] Yuri was the third of four children: his siblings were brothers Valentin (1924) and Boris (1936), and sister Zoya (1927).[5][6]

 

Like millions of Soviet Union citizens, the Gagarin family suffered during the Nazi occupation of Russia during World War II. Klushino was occupied in November 1941 during the German advance on Moscow and a German officer took over the Gagarin residence. The family were allowed to build a mud hut approximately 3 by 3 metres (10 by 10 ft) inside on the land behind their house, where they spent twenty-one months until the end of the occupation.[7] His two older siblings were deported by the Germans to Poland for slave labour in 1943 and did not return until after the war in 1945.[5][8] In 1946, the family moved to Gzhatsk, where Gagarin continued his secondary education.[7]

 

In 1950, aged 16, Gagarin began an apprenticeship as a foundryman at the Lyubertsy steel plant near Moscow,[5][8] and enrolled at a local "young workers" school for seventh-grade evening classes.[9] After graduating in 1951 from both the seventh grade and the vocational school with honours in mouldmaking and foundry work,[9] he was selected for further training at the Saratov Industrial Technical School, where he studied tractors.[5][8][10] While in Saratov, Gagarin volunteered at a local flying club for weekend training as a Soviet air cadet, where he trained to fly a biplane, and later a Yak-18.[8][10] He earned extra money as a part-time dock labourer on the Volga River.[7]

Soviet Air Force service

 

In 1955, Gagarin was accepted to the 1st Chkalovsky Higher Air Force Pilots School, a flight school in Orenburg.[11][12] He initially began training on the Yak-18 already familiar to him and later graduated to training on the MiG-15 in February 1956.[11] Gagarin twice struggled to land the two-seater trainer aircraft, and risked dismissal from pilot training. However, the commander of the regiment decided to give him another chance at landing. Gagarin's flight instructor gave him a cushion to sit on, which improved his view from the cockpit, and he landed successfully. Having completed his evaluation in a trainer aircraft,[13] Gagarin began flying solo in 1957.[5]

 

On 5 November 1957, Gagarin was commissioned a lieutenant in the Soviet Air Forces having accumulated 166 hours and 47 minutes of flight time. He graduated from flight school the next day and was posted to the Luostari airbase close to the Norwegian border in Murmansk Oblast for a two-year assignment with the Northern Fleet.[14] On 7 July 1959, he was rated Military Pilot 3rd Class.[15] After expressing interest in space exploration following the launch of Luna 3 on 6 October 1959, his recommendation to the Soviet space program was endorsed and forward by Lieutenant Colonel Babushkin.[14][16] By this point, he had accumulated 265 hours of flight time.[14] Gagarin was promoted to the rank of senior lieutenant on 6 November 1959,[15] three weeks after he was interviewed by a medical commission for qualification to the space program.[14]

Soviet space program

Selection and training

See also: Vostok programme

Vostok I capsule on display at the RKK Energiya museum

 

Gagarin's selection for the Vostok programme was overseen by the Central Flight Medical Commission led by Major General Konstantin Fyodorovich Borodin of the Soviet Army Medical Service. He underwent physical and psychological testing conducted at Central Aviation Scientific-Research Hospital, in Moscow, commanded by Colonel A.S. Usanov, a member of the commission. The commission also included Colonel Yevgeniy Anatoliyevich Karpov, who later commanded the training centre, Colonel Vladimir Ivanovich Yazdovskiy, the head physician for Gagarin's flight, and Major-General Aleksandr Nikolayevich Babiychuk, a physician flag officer on the Soviet Air Force General Staff to the Commander in Chief of the Air Force.[17]

 

From a pool of 154 qualified pilots short-listed by their Air Force units, the military physicians chose 29 cosmonaut candidates, of which 20 were approved by the Credential Committee of the Soviet Government. The first twelve including Gagarin were approved on 7 March 1960 and eight more were added in a series of subsequent orders issued until June.[18] Gagarin began training at the Khodynka Airfield in downtown Moscow on 15 March 1960. The training regiment involved vigorous and repetitive physical exercises which Alexei Leonov, a member of the initial group of twelve, described as akin to training for the Olympics Games.[19] In April 1960, they began parachute training in Saratov Oblast and each completed about 40 to 50 jumps from both low and high altitude, and over land and water.[20]

 

Gagarin was a candidate favoured by his peers. When they were asked to vote anonymously for a candidate besides themselves they would like to be the first to fly, all but three chose Gagarin.[21] One of these candidates, Yevgeny Khrunov, believed that Gagarin was very focused and was demanding of himself and others when necessary.[22] On 30 May 1960, Gagarin was further selected for an accelerated training group, known as the Vanguard Six or Sochi Six,[23][nb 3] from which the first cosmonauts of the Vostok programme would be chosen. The other members of the group were Anatoliy Kartashov, Andriyan Nikolayev, Pavel Popovich, German Titov, and Valentin Varlamov. However, Kartashov and Varlamov were injured and replaced by Khrunov and Grigoriy Nelyubov.[25]

 

As several of the candidates selected for the program including Gagarin did not have higher education degrees, they were enrolled into a correspondence course program at Zhukovsky Air Force Engineering Academy. Gagarin enrolled in the program in September 1960 and did not earn his specialist diploma until early 1968.[26][27] Gagarin was also subjected to experiments that were designed to test physical and psychological endurance including oxygen starvation tests in which the cosmonauts were locked in an isolation chamber and the air slowly pumped out. He also trained for the upcoming flight by experiencing g-forces in a centrifuge.[28][25] Psychological tests included placing the candidates in an anechoic chamber in complete isolation; Gagarin was in the chamber on July 26 – August 5.[29][20] In August 1960, a Soviet Air Force doctor evaluated his personality as follows:

 

Modest; embarrasses when his humor gets a little too racy; high degree of intellectual development evident in Yuriy; fantastic memory; distinguishes himself from his colleagues by his sharp and far-ranging sense of attention to his surroundings; a well-developed imagination; quick reactions; persevering, prepares himself painstakingly for his activities and training exercises, handles celestial mechanics and mathematical formulae with ease as well as excels in higher mathematics; does not feel constrained when he has to defend his point of view if he considers himself right; appears that he understands life better than a lot of his friends.[21]

 

The Vanguard Six were given the title of pilot-cosmonaut in January 1961[25] and entered a two-day examination conducted by a special interdepartmental commission led Lieutenant-General Nikolai Kamanin, tasked with ranking of the candidates based on their mission readiness for the first human Vostok mission. On 17 January 1961, they were tested in a simulator at the M. M. Gromov Flight-Research Institute on a full-size mockup of the Vostok capsule. Gagarin, Nikolayev, Popovich, and Titov all received excellent marks on the first day of testing in which they were required to describe the various phases of the mission followed by questions from commission.[22] On the second day, they were given a written examination following which the special commission ranked Gagarin as the best candidate the first mission. He and the next two highest-ranked cosmonauts, Titov and Nelyubov, were sent to Tyuratam for final preparations.[22] Gagarin and Titov were selected to train in the flight-ready spacecraft on 7 April 1961. Historian Asif Siddiqi writes of the final selection:[30]

 

In the end, at the State Commission meeting on April 8, Kamanin stood up and formally nominated Gagarin as the primary pilot and Titov as his backup. Without much discussion, the commission approved the proposal and moved on to other last-minute logistical issues. It was assumed that in the event Gagarin developed health problems prior to liftoff, Titov would take his place, with Nelyubov acting as his backup.

 

Vostok 1

Main article: Vostok 1

 

Poyekhali!

Menu

0:00

Gagarin's voice

Problems playing this file? See media help.

 

On 12 April 1961, 6:07 am UTC, the Vostok 3KA-3 (Vostok 1) spacecraft was launched from Baikonur Cosmodrome. Aboard was Gagarin, the first human to travel into space, using the call sign Kedr (Russian: Кедр, Siberian pine or Cedar).[31] The radio communication between the launch control room and Gagarin included the following dialogue at the moment of rocket launch:

 

Korolev: Preliminary stage ... intermediate... main... LIFT-OFF! We wish you a good flight. Everything's all right.

 

Gagarin: Off we go! Goodbye, until [we meet] soon, dear friends.[32][33]

 

Gagarin's farewell to Korolev using the informal phrase Poyekhali! (Russian: Поехали!)[nb 4] later became a popular expression in the Eastern Bloc that was used to refer to the beginning of the Space Age.[35][36] The five first-stage engines fired until the first separation event, when the four side-boosters fell away, leaving the core engine. The core stage then separated while the rocket was in a suborbital trajectory, and the upper stage carried it to orbit. Once the upper stage finished firing, it separated from the spacecraft, which orbited for 108 minutes before returning to Earth in Kazakhstan.[37] Gagarin became the first to orbit the Earth.[31]

File:1961-04-19 First Pictures-Yuri Gagarin-selection.ogvPlay media

An April 1961 newsreel of Gagarin arriving in Moscow to be greeted by First Secretary Nikita Khrushchev.

 

"The feeling of weightlessness was somewhat unfamiliar compared with Earth conditions. Here, you feel as if you were hanging in a horizontal position in straps. You feel as if you are suspended", Gagarin wrote in his post-flight report.[38] He also wrote in his autobiography released the same year that he sang the tune "The Motherland Hears, The Motherland Knows" (Russian: "Родина слышит, Родина знает") during re-entry.[39] Gagarin was qualified a Military Pilot 1st Class and promoted to the rank of major in a special order given during his flight.[15][39]

 

At about 23,000 feet (7,000 m), Gagarin ejected from the descending capsule as planned and landed using a parachute. There were concerns Gagarin's spaceflight record would not be certified by the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI), the world governing body for setting standards and keeping records in the field, which at the time required that the pilot land with the craft.[40] Gagarin and Soviet officials initially refused to admit that he had not landed with his spacecraft,[41] an omission which became apparent after Titov's subsequent flight on Vostok 2 four months later. Gagarin's spaceflight records were nonetheless certified and again reaffirmed by the FAI, which revised it rules, and acknowledge that the crucial steps of the safe launch, orbit, and return of the pilot had been accomplished. Gagarin continues to be internationally recognised as the first human in space and first to orbit the Earth.[42]

After the Vostok 1 flight

Gagarin in Warsaw, 1961

 

Gagarin's flight was a triumph for the Soviet space program and he became a national hero of the Soviet Union and Eastern Bloc, as well as a worldwide celebrity. Newspapers around the globe published his biography and details of his flight. He was escorted in a long motorcade of high-ranking officials through the streets of Moscow to the Kremlin where, in a lavish ceremony, Nikita Khrushchev awarded him the title Hero of the Soviet Union. Other cities in the Soviet Union also held mass demonstrations, the scale of which were second only to World War II Victory Parades.[43]

Gagarin and Valentina Tereshkova (seated to his right) sign autographs in 1964

 

Gagarin gained a reputation as an adept public figure and was noted for his charismatic smile.[44][45][46] On 15 April 1961, accompanied by official from the Soviet Academy of Sciences, he answered questions at a press conference in Moscow reportedly attended by 1,000 reporters.[47] Gagarin visited the United Kingdom three months after the Vostok 1 mission, going to London and Manchester.[48][44] While in Manchester, despite heavy rain, he refused an umbrella, insisted that the roof of the convertible car he was riding in remain open, and stood so the cheering crowds could see him.[44][49] Gagarin toured widely abroad, accepting the invitation of about 30 countries.[50] In just the first four months, he also went to Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Cuba, Czechoslovakia, Finland, Hungary, and Iceland.[51]

 

In 1962, Gagarin began serving as a deputy to the Soviet of the Union,[52] and was elected to the Central Committee of the Young Communist League. He later returned to Star City, the cosmonaut facility, where he spent several years working on designs for a reusable spacecraft. He became a lieutenant colonel of the Soviet Air Forces on 12 June 1962, and received the rank of colonel on 6 November 1963.[15] On 20 December 1963, Gagarin became Deputy Training Director of the Star City cosmonaut training base.[53] Soviet officials, including cosmonaut overseerer Nikolai Kamanin, tried to keep Gagarin away from any flights, being worried about losing their hero in an accident noting that he was "too dear to mankind to risk his life for the sake of an ordinary space flight".[54] Kamanin was also concerned by Gagarin's drinking and believed the sudden rise to fame had taken its toll on the cosmonaut. While acquaintances say Gagarin had been a "sensible drinker", his touring schedule placed him in social situations in which he was increasingly expected to drink alcohol.[5][10]

Gagarin with U.S. Vice President Hubert Humphrey, French Prime Minister Georges Pompidou and the Gemini 4 astronauts at the 1965 Paris Air Show

 

Two years later, he was re-elected as a deputy of the Soviet Union but this time to the Soviet of Nationalities, the upper chamber of legislature.[52] The following year, he began to re-qualify as a fighter pilot[55] and was backup pilot for his friend Vladimir Komarov on the Soyuz 1 flight after five years without piloting duty. Kamanin had opposed Gagarin's reassignment to cosmonaut training; he had gained weight and his flying skills had deteriorated. Despite this, he remained a strong contender for Soyuz 1 until he was replaced by Komarov in April 1966 and reassigned to Soyuz 3.[56]

 

The Soyuz 1 launch was rushed due to implicit political pressures[57] and despite Gagarin's protests that additional safety precautions were necessary.[58] Gagarin accompanied Komarov to the rocket before launch and relayed instructions to Komarov from ground control following multiple system failures aboard the spacecraft.[59] Despite their best efforts, Soyuz 1 crash landed after its parachutes failed to open, killing Komarov instantly.[60] After the Soyuz 1 crash, Gagarin was permanently banned from training for and participating in further spaceflights.[61] He was also grounded from flying aircraft solo, a demotion he worked hard to lift. He was temporarily relieved of duties to focus on academics with the promise that he would be able to resume flight training.[62] On 17 February 1968, Gagarin successfully defended his aerospace engineering thesis on the subject of spaceplane aerodynamic configuration and graduated cum laude from Zhukovsky Air Force Engineering Academy.[27][63][62]

Personal life

Gagarin and his wife Valentina clapping at a concert in Moscow in 1964.

Gagarin and his wife Valentina at a concert in Moscow in 1964.

 

Gagarin was a keen sportsman and fond of ice hockey as a goal keeper.[64] He was also a basketball fan and coached the Saratov Industrial Technical School team, as well as being a referee.[65]

 

In 1957, while a cadet in flight school, Gagarin met Valentina Goryacheva at the May Day celebrations at the Red Square in Moscow.[66] She was a medical technician who graduated from Orenburg Medical School.[8][10] They were married on 7 November 1957,[8] the same day Gagarin graduated from Orenburg, and they had two daughters.[67][68] Yelena Yurievna Gagarina, born 1959,[68] is an art historian who has worked as the director-general of the Moscow Kremlin Museums since 2001;[69][70] and Galina Yurievna Gagarina, born 1961,[68] is a professor of economics and the department chair at Plekhanov Russian University of Economics in Moscow.[69][71] Following his rise to fame, at a Black Sea resort in September 1961, he was reportedly caught by his wife during a liaison with a nurse who had aided him after a boating incident. He attempted to escape through a window and jumped off a second floor balcony. The resulting injury left a permanent scar above his left eyebrow.[5][10]

Death

Plaque on a brick wall with inscription: Юрий Алексеевич Гагарин, 1934-03-09–1968-03-27

Plaque indicating Gagarin's interment in the Kremlin Wall

 

On 27 March 1968, while on a routine training flight from Chkalovsky Air Base, Gagarin and flight instructor Vladimir Seryogin died when their MiG-15UTI crashed near the town of Kirzhach. The bodies of Gagarin and Seryogin were cremated and their ashes were buried in the walls of the Kremlin.[72] Wrapped in secrecy, the cause of the crash that killed Gagarin is uncertain and became the subject of several theories.[73][74] At least three investigations into the crash were conducted separately by the Air Force, official government commissions, and the KGB.[75][76] According to a biography of Gagarin by Jamie Doran and Piers Bizony, Starman: The Truth Behind the Legend of Yuri Gagarin, the KGB worked "not just alongside the Air Force and the official commission members but against them."[75]

 

The KGB's report declassified in March 2003 dismissed various conspiracy theories and instead indicated the actions of airbase personnel contributed to the crash. The report states that an air-traffic controller provided Gagarin with outdated weather information and that by the time of his flight, conditions had deteriorated significantly. Ground crew also left external fuel tanks attached to the aircraft. Gagarin's planned flight activities needed clear weather and no outboard tanks. The investigation concluded Gagarin's aircraft entered a spin, either due to a bird strike or because of a sudden move to avoid another aircraft. Because of the out-of-date weather report, the crew believed their altitude was higher than it was and could not react properly to bring the MiG-15 out of its spin.[76] Another theory, advanced in 2005 by the original crash investigator, hypothesizes that a cabin air vent was accidentally left open by the crew or the previous pilot, leading to oxygen deprivation and leaving the crew incapable of controlling the aircraft.[73] A similar theory, published in Air & Space magazine, is that the crew detected the open vent and followed procedure by executing a rapid dive to a lower altitude. This dive caused them to lose consciousness and crash.[74]

 

On 12 April 2007, the Kremlin vetoed a new investigation into the death of Gagarin. Government officials said they saw no reason to begin a new investigation.[77] In April 2011, documents from a 1968 commission set up by the Central Committee of the Communist Party to investigate the accident were declassified. The documents revealed that the commission's original conclusion was that Gagarin or Seryogin had manoeuvered sharply, either to avoid a weather balloon or to avoid "entry into the upper limit of the first layer of cloud cover", leading the jet into a "super-critical flight regime and to its stalling in complex meteorological conditions".[78]

A Russian MiG-15UTI, the same type as Gagarin was flying

 

Cosmonaut Alexei Leonov, a member of a state commission established to investigate Gagarin's death, was conducting parachute training sessions that day and heard "two loud booms in the distance". He believes that a Sukhoi Su-15 was flying below its minimum altitude and, "without realizing it because of the terrible weather conditions, he passed within 10 or 20 meters of Yuri and Seregin's plane while breaking the sound barrier". The resulting turbulence would have sent the MiG-15UTI into an uncontrolled spin. Leonov said the first boom he heard was that of the jet breaking the sound barrier and the second was Gagarin's plane crashing.[79] In a June 2013 interview with Russian television network RT, Leonov said a report on the incident confirmed the presence of a second, "unauthorized" Su-15 flying in the area. However, as a condition of being allowed to discuss the declassified report, Leonov was barred from disclosing the name of the Su-15 pilot who was 80 years old and in poor health as of 2013.[80]

Awards and honours

Medals and orders of merit

Jânio Quadros, President of Brazil, decorated Gagarin in 1961.

 

On 14 April 1961, Gagarin was honoured with a 12-mile (19 km) parade attended by millions of people that concluded at the Red Square. After a short speech, he was bestowed the Hero of the Soviet Union,[81][82] Order of Lenin,[81] Merited Master of Sports of the Soviet Union[83] and the first Pilot-Cosmonaut of the USSR.[82] On 15 April, the Soviet Academy of Sciences awarded him with the Konstantin Tsiolkovsky Gold Medal, named after the Russian pioneer of space aeronautics.[84] Gagarin had also been awarded four Soviet commemorative medals over the course of his career.[15]

 

He was honoured as a Hero of Socialist Labor (Czechoslovakia) on 29 April 1961,[85][86] and Hero of Socialist Labor (Bulgaria, including the Order of Georgi Dimitrov) on 24 May.[15][chronology citation needed] On the eighth anniversary of the beginning of Cuban Revolution (26 July), President Osvaldo Dorticos of Cuba presented him with the first Commander of the Order of Playa Girón, a newly created medal.[87]

 

Gagarin was also awarded the 1960 Gold Air Medal and the 1961 De la Vaulx Medal from the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale in Switzerland.[88] He received numerous awards from other nations that year, including the Star of the Republic of Indonesia (2nd Class), the Order of the Cross of Grunwald (1st Degree) in Poland, the Order of the Flag of the Republic of Hungary, the Hero of Labor award from Democratic Republic of Vietnam,[15] the Italian Columbus Day Medal,[89] and a Gold Medal from the British Interplanetary Society.[90][91] President Jânio Quadros of Brazil decorated Gagarin on 2 August 1961 with the Order of Aeronautical Merit, Commander grade.[92] During a tour of Egypt in late January 1962, Gagarin received the Order of the Nile[93] and the golden keys to the gates of Cairo.[50] On 22 October 1963, Gagarin and Valentina Tereshkova were honoured with the Order of Karl Marx from the German Democratic Republic.[94]

Tributes

 

The date of Gagarin's space flight, 12 April, has been commemorated. Since 1962, it has been celebrated in the USSR and most of its former territories as Cosmonautics Day.[95] Since 2000, Yuri's Night, an international celebration, is held annually to commemorate milestones in space exploration.[96] In 2011, it was declared the International Day of Human Space Flight by the United Nations.[97]

Yuri Gagarin statue at the Royal Greenwich Observatory in London

 

A number of buildings and locations have been named for Gagarin. The Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center in Star City, Russia, was named on 30 April 1968.[98] The launch pad at Baikonur Cosmodrome from which Sputnik 1 and Vostok 1 were launched is now known as Gagarin's Start. Gagarin Raion in Sevastopol, Ukraine, was named after him during the period of the Soviet Union. The Russian Air Force Academy was renamed Gagarin Air Force Academy in 1968.[99] A street in Warsaw, Poland, is called Yuri Gagarin Street.[100] The town of Gagarin, Armenia was renamed in his honour in 1961.[101]

 

Gagarin has been honoured on the Moon by astronauts and astronomers. During the American space program's Apollo 11 mission in 1969, astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin left a memorial satchel containing medals commemorating Gagarin and fellow cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov on the Moon's surface.[102][103] In 1971, Apollo 15 astronauts David Scott and James Irwin left the small Fallen Astronaut sculpture at their landing site as a memorial to the American astronauts and Soviet cosmonauts who died in the Space Race; the names on its plaque included Yuri Gagarin and 14 others.[104][105] In 1970, a 262 km (163 mi)-wide crater on the far side after him.[106] Gagarin was inducted as a member of the 1976 inaugural class of the International Space Hall of Fame in New Mexico.[107]

 

Gagarin is memorialised in music; a cycle of Soviet patriotic songs titled The Constellation Gagarin (Russian: Созвездье Гагарина, tr. Sozvezdie Gagarina) was written by Aleksandra Pakhmutova and Nikolai Dobronravov in 1970–1971.[108] The most famous of these songs refers to Gagarin's poyekhali!: in the lyrics, "He said 'let's go!' He waved his hand".[35][108] He was the inspiration for the pieces "Hey Gagarin" by Jean-Michel Jarre on Métamorphoses, "Gagarin" by Public Service Broadcasting, and "Gagarin, I loved you" by Undervud.[109]

Russian ten-ruble commemorating Gagarin in 2001

 

Vessels have been named for Gagarin; Soviet tracking ship Kosmonavt Yuri Gagarin was built in 1971[110] and the Armenian airline Armavia named their first Sukhoi Superjet 100 in his honour in 2011.[111]

 

Two commemorative coins were issued in the Soviet Union to honour the 20th and 30th anniversaries of his flight: a one-ruble coin in copper-nickel (1981) and a three-ruble coin in silver (1991). In 2001, to commemorate the 40th anniversary of Gagarin's flight, a series of four coins bearing his likeness was issued in Russia; it consisted of a two-ruble coin in copper-nickel, a three-ruble coin in silver, a ten-ruble coin in brass-copper and nickel, and a 100-ruble coin in silver.[112] In 2011, Russia issued a 1,000-ruble coin in gold and a three-ruble coin in silver to mark the 50th anniversary of his flight.[113]

 

In 2008, the Kontinental Hockey League named their championship trophy the Gagarin Cup.[114] In a 2010 Space Foundation survey, Gagarin was ranked as the sixth-most-popular space hero, tied with Star Trek's fictional James T. Kirk.[115] A Russian docudrama titled Gagarin: First in Space was released in 2013. Previous attempts at portraying Gagarin were disallowed; his family took legal action over his portrayal in a fictional drama and vetoed a musical.[116]

Statues and monuments

 

There are statues of Gagarin and monuments to him located in Gagarin (Smolensk Oblast), Orenburg, Cheboksary, Irkutsk, Izhevsk, Komsomolsk-on-Amur, and Yoshkar-Ola in Russia, as well as in Nicosia, Cyprus, Druzhkivka, Ukraine, Karaganda, Kazakhstan, and Tiraspol, Moldova. On 4 June 1980, Monument to Yuri Gagarin in Gagarin Square, Leninsky Avenue, Moscow, was opened.[117] The monument is mounted to a 38 m (125 ft) tall pedestal and is constructed of titanium. Beside the column is a replica of the descent module used during his spaceflight.[118]

Bust of Gagarin at Birla Planetarium in Kolkata, India

 

In 2011, a statue of Gagarin was unveiled at Admiralty Arch in The Mall in London, opposite the permanent sculpture of James Cook. It is a copy of the statue outside Gagarin's former school in Lyubertsy.[119] In 2013, the statue was moved to a permanent location outside the Royal Observatory, Greenwich.[120]

 

In 2012, a statue was unveiled at the site of NASA's original spaceflight headquarters on South Wayside Drive in Houston. The sculpture was completed in 2011 by artist and cosmonaut Alexei Leonov and was a gift to Houston by various Russian organisations. Houston Mayor Annise Parker, NASA Administrator Charles Bolden, and Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak were present for the dedication.[121][122] The Russian Federation presented a bust of Gagarin to several cities in India including one that was unveiled at the Birla Planetarium in Kolkata in February 2012.[123]

 

In April 2018, a bust of Gagarin erected on the street in Belgrade, Serbia, that bears his name was removed, after less than week. A new work was commissioned following the outcry over the disproportionately small size of its head which locals said was an "insult" to Gagarin.[124][125] Belgrade City Manager Goran Vesic stated that neither the city, the Serbian Ministry of Culture, nor the foundation that financed it had prior knowledge of the design.[126]

50th anniversary

50th anniversary stamp of Ukraine

 

The 50th anniversary of Gagarin's journey into space was marked in 2011 by tributes around the world. A film titled First Orbit was shot from the International Space Station, combining sound recordings from the original flight with footage of the route taken by Gagarin.[127] The Russian, American, and Italian crew of Expedition 27 aboard the ISS sent a special video message to wish the people of the world a "Happy Yuri's Night", wearing shirts with an image of Gagarin.[128]

 

The Central Bank of the Russian Federation released gold and silver coins to commemorate the anniversary.[129] The Soyuz TMA-21 spacecraft was named Gagarin with the launch in April 2011 to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the first manned space mission.

Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin [nb 1] (9 March 1934 – 27 March 1968) was a Soviet Air Forces pilot and cosmonaut who became the first human to journey into outer space, achieving a major milestone in the Space Race; his capsule Vostok 1 completed one orbit of Earth on 12 April 1961. Gagarin became an international celebrity and was awarded many medals and titles, including Hero of the Soviet Union, his nation's highest honour.

 

Vostok 1 was Gagarin's only spaceflight but he served as the backup crew to the Soyuz 1 mission, which ended in a fatal crash, killing his friend and fellow cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov. Gagarin later served as the deputy training director of the Cosmonaut Training Centre, which was subsequently named after him. He was elected as a deputy to the Soviet of the Union in 1962 and then to the Soviet of Nationalities, respectively the lower and upper chambers of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union. Gagarin died in 1968 when the MiG-15 training jet he was piloting with his flight instructor Vladimir Seryogin crashed near the town of Kirzhach.

Contents

 

1 Early life and education

2 Soviet Air Force service

3 Soviet space program

3.1 Selection and training

3.2 Vostok 1

4 After the Vostok 1 flight

5 Personal life

6 Death

7 Awards and honours

7.1 Medals and orders of merit

7.2 Tributes

7.3 Statues and monuments

7.4 50th anniversary

8 See also

9 Notes

10 References

10.1 Sources

11 Further reading

12 External links

 

Early life and education

 

Yuri Gagarin was born 9 March 1934 in the village of Klushino,[1] near Gzhatsk (renamed Gagarin in 1968 after his death).[2] His parents worked on a collective farm:[3] Alexey Ivanovich Gagarin as a carpenter and Anna Timofeyevna Gagarina as a dairy farmer.[nb 2][4] Yuri was the third of four children: his siblings were brothers Valentin (1924) and Boris (1936), and sister Zoya (1927).[5][6]

 

Like millions of Soviet Union citizens, the Gagarin family suffered during the Nazi occupation of Russia during World War II. Klushino was occupied in November 1941 during the German advance on Moscow and a German officer took over the Gagarin residence. The family were allowed to build a mud hut approximately 3 by 3 metres (10 by 10 ft) inside on the land behind their house, where they spent twenty-one months until the end of the occupation.[7] His two older siblings were deported by the Germans to Poland for slave labour in 1943 and did not return until after the war in 1945.[5][8] In 1946, the family moved to Gzhatsk, where Gagarin continued his secondary education.[7]

 

In 1950, aged 16, Gagarin began an apprenticeship as a foundryman at the Lyubertsy steel plant near Moscow,[5][8] and enrolled at a local "young workers" school for seventh-grade evening classes.[9] After graduating in 1951 from both the seventh grade and the vocational school with honours in mouldmaking and foundry work,[9] he was selected for further training at the Saratov Industrial Technical School, where he studied tractors.[5][8][10] While in Saratov, Gagarin volunteered at a local flying club for weekend training as a Soviet air cadet, where he trained to fly a biplane, and later a Yak-18.[8][10] He earned extra money as a part-time dock labourer on the Volga River.[7]

Soviet Air Force service

 

In 1955, Gagarin was accepted to the 1st Chkalovsky Higher Air Force Pilots School, a flight school in Orenburg.[11][12] He initially began training on the Yak-18 already familiar to him and later graduated to training on the MiG-15 in February 1956.[11] Gagarin twice struggled to land the two-seater trainer aircraft, and risked dismissal from pilot training. However, the commander of the regiment decided to give him another chance at landing. Gagarin's flight instructor gave him a cushion to sit on, which improved his view from the cockpit, and he landed successfully. Having completed his evaluation in a trainer aircraft,[13] Gagarin began flying solo in 1957.[5]

 

On 5 November 1957, Gagarin was commissioned a lieutenant in the Soviet Air Forces having accumulated 166 hours and 47 minutes of flight time. He graduated from flight school the next day and was posted to the Luostari airbase close to the Norwegian border in Murmansk Oblast for a two-year assignment with the Northern Fleet.[14] On 7 July 1959, he was rated Military Pilot 3rd Class.[15] After expressing interest in space exploration following the launch of Luna 3 on 6 October 1959, his recommendation to the Soviet space program was endorsed and forward by Lieutenant Colonel Babushkin.[14][16] By this point, he had accumulated 265 hours of flight time.[14] Gagarin was promoted to the rank of senior lieutenant on 6 November 1959,[15] three weeks after he was interviewed by a medical commission for qualification to the space program.[14]

Soviet space program

Selection and training

See also: Vostok programme

Vostok I capsule on display at the RKK Energiya museum

 

Gagarin's selection for the Vostok programme was overseen by the Central Flight Medical Commission led by Major General Konstantin Fyodorovich Borodin of the Soviet Army Medical Service. He underwent physical and psychological testing conducted at Central Aviation Scientific-Research Hospital, in Moscow, commanded by Colonel A.S. Usanov, a member of the commission. The commission also included Colonel Yevgeniy Anatoliyevich Karpov, who later commanded the training centre, Colonel Vladimir Ivanovich Yazdovskiy, the head physician for Gagarin's flight, and Major-General Aleksandr Nikolayevich Babiychuk, a physician flag officer on the Soviet Air Force General Staff to the Commander in Chief of the Air Force.[17]

 

From a pool of 154 qualified pilots short-listed by their Air Force units, the military physicians chose 29 cosmonaut candidates, of which 20 were approved by the Credential Committee of the Soviet Government. The first twelve including Gagarin were approved on 7 March 1960 and eight more were added in a series of subsequent orders issued until June.[18] Gagarin began training at the Khodynka Airfield in downtown Moscow on 15 March 1960. The training regiment involved vigorous and repetitive physical exercises which Alexei Leonov, a member of the initial group of twelve, described as akin to training for the Olympics Games.[19] In April 1960, they began parachute training in Saratov Oblast and each completed about 40 to 50 jumps from both low and high altitude, and over land and water.[20]

 

Gagarin was a candidate favoured by his peers. When they were asked to vote anonymously for a candidate besides themselves they would like to be the first to fly, all but three chose Gagarin.[21] One of these candidates, Yevgeny Khrunov, believed that Gagarin was very focused and was demanding of himself and others when necessary.[22] On 30 May 1960, Gagarin was further selected for an accelerated training group, known as the Vanguard Six or Sochi Six,[23][nb 3] from which the first cosmonauts of the Vostok programme would be chosen. The other members of the group were Anatoliy Kartashov, Andriyan Nikolayev, Pavel Popovich, German Titov, and Valentin Varlamov. However, Kartashov and Varlamov were injured and replaced by Khrunov and Grigoriy Nelyubov.[25]

 

As several of the candidates selected for the program including Gagarin did not have higher education degrees, they were enrolled into a correspondence course program at Zhukovsky Air Force Engineering Academy. Gagarin enrolled in the program in September 1960 and did not earn his specialist diploma until early 1968.[26][27] Gagarin was also subjected to experiments that were designed to test physical and psychological endurance including oxygen starvation tests in which the cosmonauts were locked in an isolation chamber and the air slowly pumped out. He also trained for the upcoming flight by experiencing g-forces in a centrifuge.[28][25] Psychological tests included placing the candidates in an anechoic chamber in complete isolation; Gagarin was in the chamber on July 26 – August 5.[29][20] In August 1960, a Soviet Air Force doctor evaluated his personality as follows:

 

Modest; embarrasses when his humor gets a little too racy; high degree of intellectual development evident in Yuriy; fantastic memory; distinguishes himself from his colleagues by his sharp and far-ranging sense of attention to his surroundings; a well-developed imagination; quick reactions; persevering, prepares himself painstakingly for his activities and training exercises, handles celestial mechanics and mathematical formulae with ease as well as excels in higher mathematics; does not feel constrained when he has to defend his point of view if he considers himself right; appears that he understands life better than a lot of his friends.[21]

 

The Vanguard Six were given the title of pilot-cosmonaut in January 1961[25] and entered a two-day examination conducted by a special interdepartmental commission led Lieutenant-General Nikolai Kamanin, tasked with ranking of the candidates based on their mission readiness for the first human Vostok mission. On 17 January 1961, they were tested in a simulator at the M. M. Gromov Flight-Research Institute on a full-size mockup of the Vostok capsule. Gagarin, Nikolayev, Popovich, and Titov all received excellent marks on the first day of testing in which they were required to describe the various phases of the mission followed by questions from commission.[22] On the second day, they were given a written examination following which the special commission ranked Gagarin as the best candidate the first mission. He and the next two highest-ranked cosmonauts, Titov and Nelyubov, were sent to Tyuratam for final preparations.[22] Gagarin and Titov were selected to train in the flight-ready spacecraft on 7 April 1961. Historian Asif Siddiqi writes of the final selection:[30]

 

In the end, at the State Commission meeting on April 8, Kamanin stood up and formally nominated Gagarin as the primary pilot and Titov as his backup. Without much discussion, the commission approved the proposal and moved on to other last-minute logistical issues. It was assumed that in the event Gagarin developed health problems prior to liftoff, Titov would take his place, with Nelyubov acting as his backup.

 

Vostok 1

Main article: Vostok 1

 

Poyekhali!

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Gagarin's voice

Problems playing this file? See media help.

 

On 12 April 1961, 6:07 am UTC, the Vostok 3KA-3 (Vostok 1) spacecraft was launched from Baikonur Cosmodrome. Aboard was Gagarin, the first human to travel into space, using the call sign Kedr (Russian: Кедр, Siberian pine or Cedar).[31] The radio communication between the launch control room and Gagarin included the following dialogue at the moment of rocket launch:

 

Korolev: Preliminary stage ... intermediate... main... LIFT-OFF! We wish you a good flight. Everything's all right.

 

Gagarin: Off we go! Goodbye, until [we meet] soon, dear friends.[32][33]

 

Gagarin's farewell to Korolev using the informal phrase Poyekhali! (Russian: Поехали!)[nb 4] later became a popular expression in the Eastern Bloc that was used to refer to the beginning of the Space Age.[35][36] The five first-stage engines fired until the first separation event, when the four side-boosters fell away, leaving the core engine. The core stage then separated while the rocket was in a suborbital trajectory, and the upper stage carried it to orbit. Once the upper stage finished firing, it separated from the spacecraft, which orbited for 108 minutes before returning to Earth in Kazakhstan.[37] Gagarin became the first to orbit the Earth.[31]

File:1961-04-19 First Pictures-Yuri Gagarin-selection.ogvPlay media

An April 1961 newsreel of Gagarin arriving in Moscow to be greeted by First Secretary Nikita Khrushchev.

 

"The feeling of weightlessness was somewhat unfamiliar compared with Earth conditions. Here, you feel as if you were hanging in a horizontal position in straps. You feel as if you are suspended", Gagarin wrote in his post-flight report.[38] He also wrote in his autobiography released the same year that he sang the tune "The Motherland Hears, The Motherland Knows" (Russian: "Родина слышит, Родина знает") during re-entry.[39] Gagarin was qualified a Military Pilot 1st Class and promoted to the rank of major in a special order given during his flight.[15][39]

 

At about 23,000 feet (7,000 m), Gagarin ejected from the descending capsule as planned and landed using a parachute. There were concerns Gagarin's spaceflight record would not be certified by the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI), the world governing body for setting standards and keeping records in the field, which at the time required that the pilot land with the craft.[40] Gagarin and Soviet officials initially refused to admit that he had not landed with his spacecraft,[41] an omission which became apparent after Titov's subsequent flight on Vostok 2 four months later. Gagarin's spaceflight records were nonetheless certified and again reaffirmed by the FAI, which revised it rules, and acknowledge that the crucial steps of the safe launch, orbit, and return of the pilot had been accomplished. Gagarin continues to be internationally recognised as the first human in space and first to orbit the Earth.[42]

After the Vostok 1 flight

Gagarin in Warsaw, 1961

 

Gagarin's flight was a triumph for the Soviet space program and he became a national hero of the Soviet Union and Eastern Bloc, as well as a worldwide celebrity. Newspapers around the globe published his biography and details of his flight. He was escorted in a long motorcade of high-ranking officials through the streets of Moscow to the Kremlin where, in a lavish ceremony, Nikita Khrushchev awarded him the title Hero of the Soviet Union. Other cities in the Soviet Union also held mass demonstrations, the scale of which were second only to World War II Victory Parades.[43]

Gagarin and Valentina Tereshkova (seated to his right) sign autographs in 1964

 

Gagarin gained a reputation as an adept public figure and was noted for his charismatic smile.[44][45][46] On 15 April 1961, accompanied by official from the Soviet Academy of Sciences, he answered questions at a press conference in Moscow reportedly attended by 1,000 reporters.[47] Gagarin visited the United Kingdom three months after the Vostok 1 mission, going to London and Manchester.[48][44] While in Manchester, despite heavy rain, he refused an umbrella, insisted that the roof of the convertible car he was riding in remain open, and stood so the cheering crowds could see him.[44][49] Gagarin toured widely abroad, accepting the invitation of about 30 countries.[50] In just the first four months, he also went to Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Cuba, Czechoslovakia, Finland, Hungary, and Iceland.[51]

 

In 1962, Gagarin began serving as a deputy to the Soviet of the Union,[52] and was elected to the Central Committee of the Young Communist League. He later returned to Star City, the cosmonaut facility, where he spent several years working on designs for a reusable spacecraft. He became a lieutenant colonel of the Soviet Air Forces on 12 June 1962, and received the rank of colonel on 6 November 1963.[15] On 20 December 1963, Gagarin became Deputy Training Director of the Star City cosmonaut training base.[53] Soviet officials, including cosmonaut overseerer Nikolai Kamanin, tried to keep Gagarin away from any flights, being worried about losing their hero in an accident noting that he was "too dear to mankind to risk his life for the sake of an ordinary space flight".[54] Kamanin was also concerned by Gagarin's drinking and believed the sudden rise to fame had taken its toll on the cosmonaut. While acquaintances say Gagarin had been a "sensible drinker", his touring schedule placed him in social situations in which he was increasingly expected to drink alcohol.[5][10]

Gagarin with U.S. Vice President Hubert Humphrey, French Prime Minister Georges Pompidou and the Gemini 4 astronauts at the 1965 Paris Air Show

 

Two years later, he was re-elected as a deputy of the Soviet Union but this time to the Soviet of Nationalities, the upper chamber of legislature.[52] The following year, he began to re-qualify as a fighter pilot[55] and was backup pilot for his friend Vladimir Komarov on the Soyuz 1 flight after five years without piloting duty. Kamanin had opposed Gagarin's reassignment to cosmonaut training; he had gained weight and his flying skills had deteriorated. Despite this, he remained a strong contender for Soyuz 1 until he was replaced by Komarov in April 1966 and reassigned to Soyuz 3.[56]

 

The Soyuz 1 launch was rushed due to implicit political pressures[57] and despite Gagarin's protests that additional safety precautions were necessary.[58] Gagarin accompanied Komarov to the rocket before launch and relayed instructions to Komarov from ground control following multiple system failures aboard the spacecraft.[59] Despite their best efforts, Soyuz 1 crash landed after its parachutes failed to open, killing Komarov instantly.[60] After the Soyuz 1 crash, Gagarin was permanently banned from training for and participating in further spaceflights.[61] He was also grounded from flying aircraft solo, a demotion he worked hard to lift. He was temporarily relieved of duties to focus on academics with the promise that he would be able to resume flight training.[62] On 17 February 1968, Gagarin successfully defended his aerospace engineering thesis on the subject of spaceplane aerodynamic configuration and graduated cum laude from Zhukovsky Air Force Engineering Academy.[27][63][62]

Personal life

Gagarin and his wife Valentina clapping at a concert in Moscow in 1964.

Gagarin and his wife Valentina at a concert in Moscow in 1964.

 

Gagarin was a keen sportsman and fond of ice hockey as a goal keeper.[64] He was also a basketball fan and coached the Saratov Industrial Technical School team, as well as being a referee.[65]

 

In 1957, while a cadet in flight school, Gagarin met Valentina Goryacheva at the May Day celebrations at the Red Square in Moscow.[66] She was a medical technician who graduated from Orenburg Medical School.[8][10] They were married on 7 November 1957,[8] the same day Gagarin graduated from Orenburg, and they had two daughters.[67][68] Yelena Yurievna Gagarina, born 1959,[68] is an art historian who has worked as the director-general of the Moscow Kremlin Museums since 2001;[69][70] and Galina Yurievna Gagarina, born 1961,[68] is a professor of economics and the department chair at Plekhanov Russian University of Economics in Moscow.[69][71] Following his rise to fame, at a Black Sea resort in September 1961, he was reportedly caught by his wife during a liaison with a nurse who had aided him after a boating incident. He attempted to escape through a window and jumped off a second floor balcony. The resulting injury left a permanent scar above his left eyebrow.[5][10]

Death

Plaque on a brick wall with inscription: Юрий Алексеевич Гагарин, 1934-03-09–1968-03-27

Plaque indicating Gagarin's interment in the Kremlin Wall

 

On 27 March 1968, while on a routine training flight from Chkalovsky Air Base, Gagarin and flight instructor Vladimir Seryogin died when their MiG-15UTI crashed near the town of Kirzhach. The bodies of Gagarin and Seryogin were cremated and their ashes were buried in the walls of the Kremlin.[72] Wrapped in secrecy, the cause of the crash that killed Gagarin is uncertain and became the subject of several theories.[73][74] At least three investigations into the crash were conducted separately by the Air Force, official government commissions, and the KGB.[75][76] According to a biography of Gagarin by Jamie Doran and Piers Bizony, Starman: The Truth Behind the Legend of Yuri Gagarin, the KGB worked "not just alongside the Air Force and the official commission members but against them."[75]

 

The KGB's report declassified in March 2003 dismissed various conspiracy theories and instead indicated the actions of airbase personnel contributed to the crash. The report states that an air-traffic controller provided Gagarin with outdated weather information and that by the time of his flight, conditions had deteriorated significantly. Ground crew also left external fuel tanks attached to the aircraft. Gagarin's planned flight activities needed clear weather and no outboard tanks. The investigation concluded Gagarin's aircraft entered a spin, either due to a bird strike or because of a sudden move to avoid another aircraft. Because of the out-of-date weather report, the crew believed their altitude was higher than it was and could not react properly to bring the MiG-15 out of its spin.[76] Another theory, advanced in 2005 by the original crash investigator, hypothesizes that a cabin air vent was accidentally left open by the crew or the previous pilot, leading to oxygen deprivation and leaving the crew incapable of controlling the aircraft.[73] A similar theory, published in Air & Space magazine, is that the crew detected the open vent and followed procedure by executing a rapid dive to a lower altitude. This dive caused them to lose consciousness and crash.[74]

 

On 12 April 2007, the Kremlin vetoed a new investigation into the death of Gagarin. Government officials said they saw no reason to begin a new investigation.[77] In April 2011, documents from a 1968 commission set up by the Central Committee of the Communist Party to investigate the accident were declassified. The documents revealed that the commission's original conclusion was that Gagarin or Seryogin had manoeuvered sharply, either to avoid a weather balloon or to avoid "entry into the upper limit of the first layer of cloud cover", leading the jet into a "super-critical flight regime and to its stalling in complex meteorological conditions".[78]

A Russian MiG-15UTI, the same type as Gagarin was flying

 

Cosmonaut Alexei Leonov, a member of a state commission established to investigate Gagarin's death, was conducting parachute training sessions that day and heard "two loud booms in the distance". He believes that a Sukhoi Su-15 was flying below its minimum altitude and, "without realizing it because of the terrible weather conditions, he passed within 10 or 20 meters of Yuri and Seregin's plane while breaking the sound barrier". The resulting turbulence would have sent the MiG-15UTI into an uncontrolled spin. Leonov said the first boom he heard was that of the jet breaking the sound barrier and the second was Gagarin's plane crashing.[79] In a June 2013 interview with Russian television network RT, Leonov said a report on the incident confirmed the presence of a second, "unauthorized" Su-15 flying in the area. However, as a condition of being allowed to discuss the declassified report, Leonov was barred from disclosing the name of the Su-15 pilot who was 80 years old and in poor health as of 2013.[80]

Awards and honours

Medals and orders of merit

Jânio Quadros, President of Brazil, decorated Gagarin in 1961.

 

On 14 April 1961, Gagarin was honoured with a 12-mile (19 km) parade attended by millions of people that concluded at the Red Square. After a short speech, he was bestowed the Hero of the Soviet Union,[81][82] Order of Lenin,[81] Merited Master of Sports of the Soviet Union[83] and the first Pilot-Cosmonaut of the USSR.[82] On 15 April, the Soviet Academy of Sciences awarded him with the Konstantin Tsiolkovsky Gold Medal, named after the Russian pioneer of space aeronautics.[84] Gagarin had also been awarded four Soviet commemorative medals over the course of his career.[15]

 

He was honoured as a Hero of Socialist Labor (Czechoslovakia) on 29 April 1961,[85][86] and Hero of Socialist Labor (Bulgaria, including the Order of Georgi Dimitrov) on 24 May.[15][chronology citation needed] On the eighth anniversary of the beginning of Cuban Revolution (26 July), President Osvaldo Dorticos of Cuba presented him with the first Commander of the Order of Playa Girón, a newly created medal.[87]

 

Gagarin was also awarded the 1960 Gold Air Medal and the 1961 De la Vaulx Medal from the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale in Switzerland.[88] He received numerous awards from other nations that year, including the Star of the Republic of Indonesia (2nd Class), the Order of the Cross of Grunwald (1st Degree) in Poland, the Order of the Flag of the Republic of Hungary, the Hero of Labor award from Democratic Republic of Vietnam,[15] the Italian Columbus Day Medal,[89] and a Gold Medal from the British Interplanetary Society.[90][91] President Jânio Quadros of Brazil decorated Gagarin on 2 August 1961 with the Order of Aeronautical Merit, Commander grade.[92] During a tour of Egypt in late January 1962, Gagarin received the Order of the Nile[93] and the golden keys to the gates of Cairo.[50] On 22 October 1963, Gagarin and Valentina Tereshkova were honoured with the Order of Karl Marx from the German Democratic Republic.[94]

Tributes

 

The date of Gagarin's space flight, 12 April, has been commemorated. Since 1962, it has been celebrated in the USSR and most of its former territories as Cosmonautics Day.[95] Since 2000, Yuri's Night, an international celebration, is held annually to commemorate milestones in space exploration.[96] In 2011, it was declared the International Day of Human Space Flight by the United Nations.[97]

Yuri Gagarin statue at the Royal Greenwich Observatory in London

 

A number of buildings and locations have been named for Gagarin. The Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center in Star City, Russia, was named on 30 April 1968.[98] The launch pad at Baikonur Cosmodrome from which Sputnik 1 and Vostok 1 were launched is now known as Gagarin's Start. Gagarin Raion in Sevastopol, Ukraine, was named after him during the period of the Soviet Union. The Russian Air Force Academy was renamed Gagarin Air Force Academy in 1968.[99] A street in Warsaw, Poland, is called Yuri Gagarin Street.[100] The town of Gagarin, Armenia was renamed in his honour in 1961.[101]

 

Gagarin has been honoured on the Moon by astronauts and astronomers. During the American space program's Apollo 11 mission in 1969, astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin left a memorial satchel containing medals commemorating Gagarin and fellow cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov on the Moon's surface.[102][103] In 1971, Apollo 15 astronauts David Scott and James Irwin left the small Fallen Astronaut sculpture at their landing site as a memorial to the American astronauts and Soviet cosmonauts who died in the Space Race; the names on its plaque included Yuri Gagarin and 14 others.[104][105] In 1970, a 262 km (163 mi)-wide crater on the far side after him.[106] Gagarin was inducted as a member of the 1976 inaugural class of the International Space Hall of Fame in New Mexico.[107]

 

Gagarin is memorialised in music; a cycle of Soviet patriotic songs titled The Constellation Gagarin (Russian: Созвездье Гагарина, tr. Sozvezdie Gagarina) was written by Aleksandra Pakhmutova and Nikolai Dobronravov in 1970–1971.[108] The most famous of these songs refers to Gagarin's poyekhali!: in the lyrics, "He said 'let's go!' He waved his hand".[35][108] He was the inspiration for the pieces "Hey Gagarin" by Jean-Michel Jarre on Métamorphoses, "Gagarin" by Public Service Broadcasting, and "Gagarin, I loved you" by Undervud.[109]

Russian ten-ruble commemorating Gagarin in 2001

 

Vessels have been named for Gagarin; Soviet tracking ship Kosmonavt Yuri Gagarin was built in 1971[110] and the Armenian airline Armavia named their first Sukhoi Superjet 100 in his honour in 2011.[111]

 

Two commemorative coins were issued in the Soviet Union to honour the 20th and 30th anniversaries of his flight: a one-ruble coin in copper-nickel (1981) and a three-ruble coin in silver (1991). In 2001, to commemorate the 40th anniversary of Gagarin's flight, a series of four coins bearing his likeness was issued in Russia; it consisted of a two-ruble coin in copper-nickel, a three-ruble coin in silver, a ten-ruble coin in brass-copper and nickel, and a 100-ruble coin in silver.[112] In 2011, Russia issued a 1,000-ruble coin in gold and a three-ruble coin in silver to mark the 50th anniversary of his flight.[113]

 

In 2008, the Kontinental Hockey League named their championship trophy the Gagarin Cup.[114] In a 2010 Space Foundation survey, Gagarin was ranked as the sixth-most-popular space hero, tied with Star Trek's fictional James T. Kirk.[115] A Russian docudrama titled Gagarin: First in Space was released in 2013. Previous attempts at portraying Gagarin were disallowed; his family took legal action over his portrayal in a fictional drama and vetoed a musical.[116]

Statues and monuments

 

There are statues of Gagarin and monuments to him located in Gagarin (Smolensk Oblast), Orenburg, Cheboksary, Irkutsk, Izhevsk, Komsomolsk-on-Amur, and Yoshkar-Ola in Russia, as well as in Nicosia, Cyprus, Druzhkivka, Ukraine, Karaganda, Kazakhstan, and Tiraspol, Moldova. On 4 June 1980, Monument to Yuri Gagarin in Gagarin Square, Leninsky Avenue, Moscow, was opened.[117] The monument is mounted to a 38 m (125 ft) tall pedestal and is constructed of titanium. Beside the column is a replica of the descent module used during his spaceflight.[118]

Bust of Gagarin at Birla Planetarium in Kolkata, India

 

In 2011, a statue of Gagarin was unveiled at Admiralty Arch in The Mall in London, opposite the permanent sculpture of James Cook. It is a copy of the statue outside Gagarin's former school in Lyubertsy.[119] In 2013, the statue was moved to a permanent location outside the Royal Observatory, Greenwich.[120]

 

In 2012, a statue was unveiled at the site of NASA's original spaceflight headquarters on South Wayside Drive in Houston. The sculpture was completed in 2011 by artist and cosmonaut Alexei Leonov and was a gift to Houston by various Russian organisations. Houston Mayor Annise Parker, NASA Administrator Charles Bolden, and Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak were present for the dedication.[121][122] The Russian Federation presented a bust of Gagarin to several cities in India including one that was unveiled at the Birla Planetarium in Kolkata in February 2012.[123]

 

In April 2018, a bust of Gagarin erected on the street in Belgrade, Serbia, that bears his name was removed, after less than week. A new work was commissioned following the outcry over the disproportionately small size of its head which locals said was an "insult" to Gagarin.[124][125] Belgrade City Manager Goran Vesic stated that neither the city, the Serbian Ministry of Culture, nor the foundation that financed it had prior knowledge of the design.[126]

50th anniversary

50th anniversary stamp of Ukraine

 

The 50th anniversary of Gagarin's journey into space was marked in 2011 by tributes around the world. A film titled First Orbit was shot from the International Space Station, combining sound recordings from the original flight with footage of the route taken by Gagarin.[127] The Russian, American, and Italian crew of Expedition 27 aboard the ISS sent a special video message to wish the people of the world a "Happy Yuri's Night", wearing shirts with an image of Gagarin.[128]

 

The Central Bank of the Russian Federation released gold and silver coins to commemorate the anniversary.[129] The Soyuz TMA-21 spacecraft was named Gagarin with the launch in April 2011 to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the first manned space mission.

Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin [nb 1] (9 March 1934 – 27 March 1968) was a Soviet Air Forces pilot and cosmonaut who became the first human to journey into outer space, achieving a major milestone in the Space Race; his capsule Vostok 1 completed one orbit of Earth on 12 April 1961. Gagarin became an international celebrity and was awarded many medals and titles, including Hero of the Soviet Union, his nation's highest honour.

 

Vostok 1 was Gagarin's only spaceflight but he served as the backup crew to the Soyuz 1 mission, which ended in a fatal crash, killing his friend and fellow cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov. Gagarin later served as the deputy training director of the Cosmonaut Training Centre, which was subsequently named after him. He was elected as a deputy to the Soviet of the Union in 1962 and then to the Soviet of Nationalities, respectively the lower and upper chambers of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union. Gagarin died in 1968 when the MiG-15 training jet he was piloting with his flight instructor Vladimir Seryogin crashed near the town of Kirzhach.

Contents

 

1 Early life and education

2 Soviet Air Force service

3 Soviet space program

3.1 Selection and training

3.2 Vostok 1

4 After the Vostok 1 flight

5 Personal life

6 Death

7 Awards and honours

7.1 Medals and orders of merit

7.2 Tributes

7.3 Statues and monuments

7.4 50th anniversary

8 See also

9 Notes

10 References

10.1 Sources

11 Further reading

12 External links

 

Early life and education

 

Yuri Gagarin was born 9 March 1934 in the village of Klushino,[1] near Gzhatsk (renamed Gagarin in 1968 after his death).[2] His parents worked on a collective farm:[3] Alexey Ivanovich Gagarin as a carpenter and Anna Timofeyevna Gagarina as a dairy farmer.[nb 2][4] Yuri was the third of four children: his siblings were brothers Valentin (1924) and Boris (1936), and sister Zoya (1927).[5][6]

 

Like millions of Soviet Union citizens, the Gagarin family suffered during the Nazi occupation of Russia during World War II. Klushino was occupied in November 1941 during the German advance on Moscow and a German officer took over the Gagarin residence. The family were allowed to build a mud hut approximately 3 by 3 metres (10 by 10 ft) inside on the land behind their house, where they spent twenty-one months until the end of the occupation.[7] His two older siblings were deported by the Germans to Poland for slave labour in 1943 and did not return until after the war in 1945.[5][8] In 1946, the family moved to Gzhatsk, where Gagarin continued his secondary education.[7]

 

In 1950, aged 16, Gagarin began an apprenticeship as a foundryman at the Lyubertsy steel plant near Moscow,[5][8] and enrolled at a local "young workers" school for seventh-grade evening classes.[9] After graduating in 1951 from both the seventh grade and the vocational school with honours in mouldmaking and foundry work,[9] he was selected for further training at the Saratov Industrial Technical School, where he studied tractors.[5][8][10] While in Saratov, Gagarin volunteered at a local flying club for weekend training as a Soviet air cadet, where he trained to fly a biplane, and later a Yak-18.[8][10] He earned extra money as a part-time dock labourer on the Volga River.[7]

Soviet Air Force service

 

In 1955, Gagarin was accepted to the 1st Chkalovsky Higher Air Force Pilots School, a flight school in Orenburg.[11][12] He initially began training on the Yak-18 already familiar to him and later graduated to training on the MiG-15 in February 1956.[11] Gagarin twice struggled to land the two-seater trainer aircraft, and risked dismissal from pilot training. However, the commander of the regiment decided to give him another chance at landing. Gagarin's flight instructor gave him a cushion to sit on, which improved his view from the cockpit, and he landed successfully. Having completed his evaluation in a trainer aircraft,[13] Gagarin began flying solo in 1957.[5]

 

On 5 November 1957, Gagarin was commissioned a lieutenant in the Soviet Air Forces having accumulated 166 hours and 47 minutes of flight time. He graduated from flight school the next day and was posted to the Luostari airbase close to the Norwegian border in Murmansk Oblast for a two-year assignment with the Northern Fleet.[14] On 7 July 1959, he was rated Military Pilot 3rd Class.[15] After expressing interest in space exploration following the launch of Luna 3 on 6 October 1959, his recommendation to the Soviet space program was endorsed and forward by Lieutenant Colonel Babushkin.[14][16] By this point, he had accumulated 265 hours of flight time.[14] Gagarin was promoted to the rank of senior lieutenant on 6 November 1959,[15] three weeks after he was interviewed by a medical commission for qualification to the space program.[14]

Soviet space program

Selection and training

See also: Vostok programme

Vostok I capsule on display at the RKK Energiya museum

 

Gagarin's selection for the Vostok programme was overseen by the Central Flight Medical Commission led by Major General Konstantin Fyodorovich Borodin of the Soviet Army Medical Service. He underwent physical and psychological testing conducted at Central Aviation Scientific-Research Hospital, in Moscow, commanded by Colonel A.S. Usanov, a member of the commission. The commission also included Colonel Yevgeniy Anatoliyevich Karpov, who later commanded the training centre, Colonel Vladimir Ivanovich Yazdovskiy, the head physician for Gagarin's flight, and Major-General Aleksandr Nikolayevich Babiychuk, a physician flag officer on the Soviet Air Force General Staff to the Commander in Chief of the Air Force.[17]

 

From a pool of 154 qualified pilots short-listed by their Air Force units, the military physicians chose 29 cosmonaut candidates, of which 20 were approved by the Credential Committee of the Soviet Government. The first twelve including Gagarin were approved on 7 March 1960 and eight more were added in a series of subsequent orders issued until June.[18] Gagarin began training at the Khodynka Airfield in downtown Moscow on 15 March 1960. The training regiment involved vigorous and repetitive physical exercises which Alexei Leonov, a member of the initial group of twelve, described as akin to training for the Olympics Games.[19] In April 1960, they began parachute training in Saratov Oblast and each completed about 40 to 50 jumps from both low and high altitude, and over land and water.[20]

 

Gagarin was a candidate favoured by his peers. When they were asked to vote anonymously for a candidate besides themselves they would like to be the first to fly, all but three chose Gagarin.[21] One of these candidates, Yevgeny Khrunov, believed that Gagarin was very focused and was demanding of himself and others when necessary.[22] On 30 May 1960, Gagarin was further selected for an accelerated training group, known as the Vanguard Six or Sochi Six,[23][nb 3] from which the first cosmonauts of the Vostok programme would be chosen. The other members of the group were Anatoliy Kartashov, Andriyan Nikolayev, Pavel Popovich, German Titov, and Valentin Varlamov. However, Kartashov and Varlamov were injured and replaced by Khrunov and Grigoriy Nelyubov.[25]

 

As several of the candidates selected for the program including Gagarin did not have higher education degrees, they were enrolled into a correspondence course program at Zhukovsky Air Force Engineering Academy. Gagarin enrolled in the program in September 1960 and did not earn his specialist diploma until early 1968.[26][27] Gagarin was also subjected to experiments that were designed to test physical and psychological endurance including oxygen starvation tests in which the cosmonauts were locked in an isolation chamber and the air slowly pumped out. He also trained for the upcoming flight by experiencing g-forces in a centrifuge.[28][25] Psychological tests included placing the candidates in an anechoic chamber in complete isolation; Gagarin was in the chamber on July 26 – August 5.[29][20] In August 1960, a Soviet Air Force doctor evaluated his personality as follows:

 

Modest; embarrasses when his humor gets a little too racy; high degree of intellectual development evident in Yuriy; fantastic memory; distinguishes himself from his colleagues by his sharp and far-ranging sense of attention to his surroundings; a well-developed imagination; quick reactions; persevering, prepares himself painstakingly for his activities and training exercises, handles celestial mechanics and mathematical formulae with ease as well as excels in higher mathematics; does not feel constrained when he has to defend his point of view if he considers himself right; appears that he understands life better than a lot of his friends.[21]

 

The Vanguard Six were given the title of pilot-cosmonaut in January 1961[25] and entered a two-day examination conducted by a special interdepartmental commission led Lieutenant-General Nikolai Kamanin, tasked with ranking of the candidates based on their mission readiness for the first human Vostok mission. On 17 January 1961, they were tested in a simulator at the M. M. Gromov Flight-Research Institute on a full-size mockup of the Vostok capsule. Gagarin, Nikolayev, Popovich, and Titov all received excellent marks on the first day of testing in which they were required to describe the various phases of the mission followed by questions from commission.[22] On the second day, they were given a written examination following which the special commission ranked Gagarin as the best candidate the first mission. He and the next two highest-ranked cosmonauts, Titov and Nelyubov, were sent to Tyuratam for final preparations.[22] Gagarin and Titov were selected to train in the flight-ready spacecraft on 7 April 1961. Historian Asif Siddiqi writes of the final selection:[30]

 

In the end, at the State Commission meeting on April 8, Kamanin stood up and formally nominated Gagarin as the primary pilot and Titov as his backup. Without much discussion, the commission approved the proposal and moved on to other last-minute logistical issues. It was assumed that in the event Gagarin developed health problems prior to liftoff, Titov would take his place, with Nelyubov acting as his backup.

 

Vostok 1

Main article: Vostok 1

 

Poyekhali!

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Gagarin's voice

Problems playing this file? See media help.

 

On 12 April 1961, 6:07 am UTC, the Vostok 3KA-3 (Vostok 1) spacecraft was launched from Baikonur Cosmodrome. Aboard was Gagarin, the first human to travel into space, using the call sign Kedr (Russian: Кедр, Siberian pine or Cedar).[31] The radio communication between the launch control room and Gagarin included the following dialogue at the moment of rocket launch:

 

Korolev: Preliminary stage ... intermediate... main... LIFT-OFF! We wish you a good flight. Everything's all right.

 

Gagarin: Off we go! Goodbye, until [we meet] soon, dear friends.[32][33]

 

Gagarin's farewell to Korolev using the informal phrase Poyekhali! (Russian: Поехали!)[nb 4] later became a popular expression in the Eastern Bloc that was used to refer to the beginning of the Space Age.[35][36] The five first-stage engines fired until the first separation event, when the four side-boosters fell away, leaving the core engine. The core stage then separated while the rocket was in a suborbital trajectory, and the upper stage carried it to orbit. Once the upper stage finished firing, it separated from the spacecraft, which orbited for 108 minutes before returning to Earth in Kazakhstan.[37] Gagarin became the first to orbit the Earth.[31]

File:1961-04-19 First Pictures-Yuri Gagarin-selection.ogvPlay media

An April 1961 newsreel of Gagarin arriving in Moscow to be greeted by First Secretary Nikita Khrushchev.

 

"The feeling of weightlessness was somewhat unfamiliar compared with Earth conditions. Here, you feel as if you were hanging in a horizontal position in straps. You feel as if you are suspended", Gagarin wrote in his post-flight report.[38] He also wrote in his autobiography released the same year that he sang the tune "The Motherland Hears, The Motherland Knows" (Russian: "Родина слышит, Родина знает") during re-entry.[39] Gagarin was qualified a Military Pilot 1st Class and promoted to the rank of major in a special order given during his flight.[15][39]

 

At about 23,000 feet (7,000 m), Gagarin ejected from the descending capsule as planned and landed using a parachute. There were concerns Gagarin's spaceflight record would not be certified by the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI), the world governing body for setting standards and keeping records in the field, which at the time required that the pilot land with the craft.[40] Gagarin and Soviet officials initially refused to admit that he had not landed with his spacecraft,[41] an omission which became apparent after Titov's subsequent flight on Vostok 2 four months later. Gagarin's spaceflight records were nonetheless certified and again reaffirmed by the FAI, which revised it rules, and acknowledge that the crucial steps of the safe launch, orbit, and return of the pilot had been accomplished. Gagarin continues to be internationally recognised as the first human in space and first to orbit the Earth.[42]

After the Vostok 1 flight

Gagarin in Warsaw, 1961

 

Gagarin's flight was a triumph for the Soviet space program and he became a national hero of the Soviet Union and Eastern Bloc, as well as a worldwide celebrity. Newspapers around the globe published his biography and details of his flight. He was escorted in a long motorcade of high-ranking officials through the streets of Moscow to the Kremlin where, in a lavish ceremony, Nikita Khrushchev awarded him the title Hero of the Soviet Union. Other cities in the Soviet Union also held mass demonstrations, the scale of which were second only to World War II Victory Parades.[43]

Gagarin and Valentina Tereshkova (seated to his right) sign autographs in 1964

 

Gagarin gained a reputation as an adept public figure and was noted for his charismatic smile.[44][45][46] On 15 April 1961, accompanied by official from the Soviet Academy of Sciences, he answered questions at a press conference in Moscow reportedly attended by 1,000 reporters.[47] Gagarin visited the United Kingdom three months after the Vostok 1 mission, going to London and Manchester.[48][44] While in Manchester, despite heavy rain, he refused an umbrella, insisted that the roof of the convertible car he was riding in remain open, and stood so the cheering crowds could see him.[44][49] Gagarin toured widely abroad, accepting the invitation of about 30 countries.[50] In just the first four months, he also went to Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Cuba, Czechoslovakia, Finland, Hungary, and Iceland.[51]

 

In 1962, Gagarin began serving as a deputy to the Soviet of the Union,[52] and was elected to the Central Committee of the Young Communist League. He later returned to Star City, the cosmonaut facility, where he spent several years working on designs for a reusable spacecraft. He became a lieutenant colonel of the Soviet Air Forces on 12 June 1962, and received the rank of colonel on 6 November 1963.[15] On 20 December 1963, Gagarin became Deputy Training Director of the Star City cosmonaut training base.[53] Soviet officials, including cosmonaut overseerer Nikolai Kamanin, tried to keep Gagarin away from any flights, being worried about losing their hero in an accident noting that he was "too dear to mankind to risk his life for the sake of an ordinary space flight".[54] Kamanin was also concerned by Gagarin's drinking and believed the sudden rise to fame had taken its toll on the cosmonaut. While acquaintances say Gagarin had been a "sensible drinker", his touring schedule placed him in social situations in which he was increasingly expected to drink alcohol.[5][10]

Gagarin with U.S. Vice President Hubert Humphrey, French Prime Minister Georges Pompidou and the Gemini 4 astronauts at the 1965 Paris Air Show

 

Two years later, he was re-elected as a deputy of the Soviet Union but this time to the Soviet of Nationalities, the upper chamber of legislature.[52] The following year, he began to re-qualify as a fighter pilot[55] and was backup pilot for his friend Vladimir Komarov on the Soyuz 1 flight after five years without piloting duty. Kamanin had opposed Gagarin's reassignment to cosmonaut training; he had gained weight and his flying skills had deteriorated. Despite this, he remained a strong contender for Soyuz 1 until he was replaced by Komarov in April 1966 and reassigned to Soyuz 3.[56]

 

The Soyuz 1 launch was rushed due to implicit political pressures[57] and despite Gagarin's protests that additional safety precautions were necessary.[58] Gagarin accompanied Komarov to the rocket before launch and relayed instructions to Komarov from ground control following multiple system failures aboard the spacecraft.[59] Despite their best efforts, Soyuz 1 crash landed after its parachutes failed to open, killing Komarov instantly.[60] After the Soyuz 1 crash, Gagarin was permanently banned from training for and participating in further spaceflights.[61] He was also grounded from flying aircraft solo, a demotion he worked hard to lift. He was temporarily relieved of duties to focus on academics with the promise that he would be able to resume flight training.[62] On 17 February 1968, Gagarin successfully defended his aerospace engineering thesis on the subject of spaceplane aerodynamic configuration and graduated cum laude from Zhukovsky Air Force Engineering Academy.[27][63][62]

Personal life

Gagarin and his wife Valentina clapping at a concert in Moscow in 1964.

Gagarin and his wife Valentina at a concert in Moscow in 1964.

 

Gagarin was a keen sportsman and fond of ice hockey as a goal keeper.[64] He was also a basketball fan and coached the Saratov Industrial Technical School team, as well as being a referee.[65]

 

In 1957, while a cadet in flight school, Gagarin met Valentina Goryacheva at the May Day celebrations at the Red Square in Moscow.[66] She was a medical technician who graduated from Orenburg Medical School.[8][10] They were married on 7 November 1957,[8] the same day Gagarin graduated from Orenburg, and they had two daughters.[67][68] Yelena Yurievna Gagarina, born 1959,[68] is an art historian who has worked as the director-general of the Moscow Kremlin Museums since 2001;[69][70] and Galina Yurievna Gagarina, born 1961,[68] is a professor of economics and the department chair at Plekhanov Russian University of Economics in Moscow.[69][71] Following his rise to fame, at a Black Sea resort in September 1961, he was reportedly caught by his wife during a liaison with a nurse who had aided him after a boating incident. He attempted to escape through a window and jumped off a second floor balcony. The resulting injury left a permanent scar above his left eyebrow.[5][10]

Death

Plaque on a brick wall with inscription: Юрий Алексеевич Гагарин, 1934-03-09–1968-03-27

Plaque indicating Gagarin's interment in the Kremlin Wall

 

On 27 March 1968, while on a routine training flight from Chkalovsky Air Base, Gagarin and flight instructor Vladimir Seryogin died when their MiG-15UTI crashed near the town of Kirzhach. The bodies of Gagarin and Seryogin were cremated and their ashes were buried in the walls of the Kremlin.[72] Wrapped in secrecy, the cause of the crash that killed Gagarin is uncertain and became the subject of several theories.[73][74] At least three investigations into the crash were conducted separately by the Air Force, official government commissions, and the KGB.[75][76] According to a biography of Gagarin by Jamie Doran and Piers Bizony, Starman: The Truth Behind the Legend of Yuri Gagarin, the KGB worked "not just alongside the Air Force and the official commission members but against them."[75]

 

The KGB's report declassified in March 2003 dismissed various conspiracy theories and instead indicated the actions of airbase personnel contributed to the crash. The report states that an air-traffic controller provided Gagarin with outdated weather information and that by the time of his flight, conditions had deteriorated significantly. Ground crew also left external fuel tanks attached to the aircraft. Gagarin's planned flight activities needed clear weather and no outboard tanks. The investigation concluded Gagarin's aircraft entered a spin, either due to a bird strike or because of a sudden move to avoid another aircraft. Because of the out-of-date weather report, the crew believed their altitude was higher than it was and could not react properly to bring the MiG-15 out of its spin.[76] Another theory, advanced in 2005 by the original crash investigator, hypothesizes that a cabin air vent was accidentally left open by the crew or the previous pilot, leading to oxygen deprivation and leaving the crew incapable of controlling the aircraft.[73] A similar theory, published in Air & Space magazine, is that the crew detected the open vent and followed procedure by executing a rapid dive to a lower altitude. This dive caused them to lose consciousness and crash.[74]

 

On 12 April 2007, the Kremlin vetoed a new investigation into the death of Gagarin. Government officials said they saw no reason to begin a new investigation.[77] In April 2011, documents from a 1968 commission set up by the Central Committee of the Communist Party to investigate the accident were declassified. The documents revealed that the commission's original conclusion was that Gagarin or Seryogin had manoeuvered sharply, either to avoid a weather balloon or to avoid "entry into the upper limit of the first layer of cloud cover", leading the jet into a "super-critical flight regime and to its stalling in complex meteorological conditions".[78]

A Russian MiG-15UTI, the same type as Gagarin was flying

 

Cosmonaut Alexei Leonov, a member of a state commission established to investigate Gagarin's death, was conducting parachute training sessions that day and heard "two loud booms in the distance". He believes that a Sukhoi Su-15 was flying below its minimum altitude and, "without realizing it because of the terrible weather conditions, he passed within 10 or 20 meters of Yuri and Seregin's plane while breaking the sound barrier". The resulting turbulence would have sent the MiG-15UTI into an uncontrolled spin. Leonov said the first boom he heard was that of the jet breaking the sound barrier and the second was Gagarin's plane crashing.[79] In a June 2013 interview with Russian television network RT, Leonov said a report on the incident confirmed the presence of a second, "unauthorized" Su-15 flying in the area. However, as a condition of being allowed to discuss the declassified report, Leonov was barred from disclosing the name of the Su-15 pilot who was 80 years old and in poor health as of 2013.[80]

Awards and honours

Medals and orders of merit

Jânio Quadros, President of Brazil, decorated Gagarin in 1961.

 

On 14 April 1961, Gagarin was honoured with a 12-mile (19 km) parade attended by millions of people that concluded at the Red Square. After a short speech, he was bestowed the Hero of the Soviet Union,[81][82] Order of Lenin,[81] Merited Master of Sports of the Soviet Union[83] and the first Pilot-Cosmonaut of the USSR.[82] On 15 April, the Soviet Academy of Sciences awarded him with the Konstantin Tsiolkovsky Gold Medal, named after the Russian pioneer of space aeronautics.[84] Gagarin had also been awarded four Soviet commemorative medals over the course of his career.[15]

 

He was honoured as a Hero of Socialist Labor (Czechoslovakia) on 29 April 1961,[85][86] and Hero of Socialist Labor (Bulgaria, including the Order of Georgi Dimitrov) on 24 May.[15][chronology citation needed] On the eighth anniversary of the beginning of Cuban Revolution (26 July), President Osvaldo Dorticos of Cuba presented him with the first Commander of the Order of Playa Girón, a newly created medal.[87]

 

Gagarin was also awarded the 1960 Gold Air Medal and the 1961 De la Vaulx Medal from the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale in Switzerland.[88] He received numerous awards from other nations that year, including the Star of the Republic of Indonesia (2nd Class), the Order of the Cross of Grunwald (1st Degree) in Poland, the Order of the Flag of the Republic of Hungary, the Hero of Labor award from Democratic Republic of Vietnam,[15] the Italian Columbus Day Medal,[89] and a Gold Medal from the British Interplanetary Society.[90][91] President Jânio Quadros of Brazil decorated Gagarin on 2 August 1961 with the Order of Aeronautical Merit, Commander grade.[92] During a tour of Egypt in late January 1962, Gagarin received the Order of the Nile[93] and the golden keys to the gates of Cairo.[50] On 22 October 1963, Gagarin and Valentina Tereshkova were honoured with the Order of Karl Marx from the German Democratic Republic.[94]

Tributes

 

The date of Gagarin's space flight, 12 April, has been commemorated. Since 1962, it has been celebrated in the USSR and most of its former territories as Cosmonautics Day.[95] Since 2000, Yuri's Night, an international celebration, is held annually to commemorate milestones in space exploration.[96] In 2011, it was declared the International Day of Human Space Flight by the United Nations.[97]

Yuri Gagarin statue at the Royal Greenwich Observatory in London

 

A number of buildings and locations have been named for Gagarin. The Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center in Star City, Russia, was named on 30 April 1968.[98] The launch pad at Baikonur Cosmodrome from which Sputnik 1 and Vostok 1 were launched is now known as Gagarin's Start. Gagarin Raion in Sevastopol, Ukraine, was named after him during the period of the Soviet Union. The Russian Air Force Academy was renamed Gagarin Air Force Academy in 1968.[99] A street in Warsaw, Poland, is called Yuri Gagarin Street.[100] The town of Gagarin, Armenia was renamed in his honour in 1961.[101]

 

Gagarin has been honoured on the Moon by astronauts and astronomers. During the American space program's Apollo 11 mission in 1969, astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin left a memorial satchel containing medals commemorating Gagarin and fellow cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov on the Moon's surface.[102][103] In 1971, Apollo 15 astronauts David Scott and James Irwin left the small Fallen Astronaut sculpture at their landing site as a memorial to the American astronauts and Soviet cosmonauts who died in the Space Race; the names on its plaque included Yuri Gagarin and 14 others.[104][105] In 1970, a 262 km (163 mi)-wide crater on the far side after him.[106] Gagarin was inducted as a member of the 1976 inaugural class of the International Space Hall of Fame in New Mexico.[107]

 

Gagarin is memorialised in music; a cycle of Soviet patriotic songs titled The Constellation Gagarin (Russian: Созвездье Гагарина, tr. Sozvezdie Gagarina) was written by Aleksandra Pakhmutova and Nikolai Dobronravov in 1970–1971.[108] The most famous of these songs refers to Gagarin's poyekhali!: in the lyrics, "He said 'let's go!' He waved his hand".[35][108] He was the inspiration for the pieces "Hey Gagarin" by Jean-Michel Jarre on Métamorphoses, "Gagarin" by Public Service Broadcasting, and "Gagarin, I loved you" by Undervud.[109]

Russian ten-ruble commemorating Gagarin in 2001

 

Vessels have been named for Gagarin; Soviet tracking ship Kosmonavt Yuri Gagarin was built in 1971[110] and the Armenian airline Armavia named their first Sukhoi Superjet 100 in his honour in 2011.[111]

 

Two commemorative coins were issued in the Soviet Union to honour the 20th and 30th anniversaries of his flight: a one-ruble coin in copper-nickel (1981) and a three-ruble coin in silver (1991). In 2001, to commemorate the 40th anniversary of Gagarin's flight, a series of four coins bearing his likeness was issued in Russia; it consisted of a two-ruble coin in copper-nickel, a three-ruble coin in silver, a ten-ruble coin in brass-copper and nickel, and a 100-ruble coin in silver.[112] In 2011, Russia issued a 1,000-ruble coin in gold and a three-ruble coin in silver to mark the 50th anniversary of his flight.[113]

 

In 2008, the Kontinental Hockey League named their championship trophy the Gagarin Cup.[114] In a 2010 Space Foundation survey, Gagarin was ranked as the sixth-most-popular space hero, tied with Star Trek's fictional James T. Kirk.[115] A Russian docudrama titled Gagarin: First in Space was released in 2013. Previous attempts at portraying Gagarin were disallowed; his family took legal action over his portrayal in a fictional drama and vetoed a musical.[116]

Statues and monuments

 

There are statues of Gagarin and monuments to him located in Gagarin (Smolensk Oblast), Orenburg, Cheboksary, Irkutsk, Izhevsk, Komsomolsk-on-Amur, and Yoshkar-Ola in Russia, as well as in Nicosia, Cyprus, Druzhkivka, Ukraine, Karaganda, Kazakhstan, and Tiraspol, Moldova. On 4 June 1980, Monument to Yuri Gagarin in Gagarin Square, Leninsky Avenue, Moscow, was opened.[117] The monument is mounted to a 38 m (125 ft) tall pedestal and is constructed of titanium. Beside the column is a replica of the descent module used during his spaceflight.[118]

Bust of Gagarin at Birla Planetarium in Kolkata, India

 

In 2011, a statue of Gagarin was unveiled at Admiralty Arch in The Mall in London, opposite the permanent sculpture of James Cook. It is a copy of the statue outside Gagarin's former school in Lyubertsy.[119] In 2013, the statue was moved to a permanent location outside the Royal Observatory, Greenwich.[120]

 

In 2012, a statue was unveiled at the site of NASA's original spaceflight headquarters on South Wayside Drive in Houston. The sculpture was completed in 2011 by artist and cosmonaut Alexei Leonov and was a gift to Houston by various Russian organisations. Houston Mayor Annise Parker, NASA Administrator Charles Bolden, and Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak were present for the dedication.[121][122] The Russian Federation presented a bust of Gagarin to several cities in India including one that was unveiled at the Birla Planetarium in Kolkata in February 2012.[123]

 

In April 2018, a bust of Gagarin erected on the street in Belgrade, Serbia, that bears his name was removed, after less than week. A new work was commissioned following the outcry over the disproportionately small size of its head which locals said was an "insult" to Gagarin.[124][125] Belgrade City Manager Goran Vesic stated that neither the city, the Serbian Ministry of Culture, nor the foundation that financed it had prior knowledge of the design.[126]

50th anniversary

50th anniversary stamp of Ukraine

 

The 50th anniversary of Gagarin's journey into space was marked in 2011 by tributes around the world. A film titled First Orbit was shot from the International Space Station, combining sound recordings from the original flight with footage of the route taken by Gagarin.[127] The Russian, American, and Italian crew of Expedition 27 aboard the ISS sent a special video message to wish the people of the world a "Happy Yuri's Night", wearing shirts with an image of Gagarin.[128]

 

The Central Bank of the Russian Federation released gold and silver coins to commemorate the anniversary.[129] The Soyuz TMA-21 spacecraft was named Gagarin with the launch in April 2011 to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the first manned space mission.

Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin [nb 1] (9 March 1934 – 27 March 1968) was a Soviet Air Forces pilot and cosmonaut who became the first human to journey into outer space, achieving a major milestone in the Space Race; his capsule Vostok 1 completed one orbit of Earth on 12 April 1961. Gagarin became an international celebrity and was awarded many medals and titles, including Hero of the Soviet Union, his nation's highest honour.

 

Vostok 1 was Gagarin's only spaceflight but he served as the backup crew to the Soyuz 1 mission, which ended in a fatal crash, killing his friend and fellow cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov. Gagarin later served as the deputy training director of the Cosmonaut Training Centre, which was subsequently named after him. He was elected as a deputy to the Soviet of the Union in 1962 and then to the Soviet of Nationalities, respectively the lower and upper chambers of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union. Gagarin died in 1968 when the MiG-15 training jet he was piloting with his flight instructor Vladimir Seryogin crashed near the town of Kirzhach.

Contents

 

1 Early life and education

2 Soviet Air Force service

3 Soviet space program

3.1 Selection and training

3.2 Vostok 1

4 After the Vostok 1 flight

5 Personal life

6 Death

7 Awards and honours

7.1 Medals and orders of merit

7.2 Tributes

7.3 Statues and monuments

7.4 50th anniversary

8 See also

9 Notes

10 References

10.1 Sources

11 Further reading

12 External links

 

Early life and education

 

Yuri Gagarin was born 9 March 1934 in the village of Klushino,[1] near Gzhatsk (renamed Gagarin in 1968 after his death).[2] His parents worked on a collective farm:[3] Alexey Ivanovich Gagarin as a carpenter and Anna Timofeyevna Gagarina as a dairy farmer.[nb 2][4] Yuri was the third of four children: his siblings were brothers Valentin (1924) and Boris (1936), and sister Zoya (1927).[5][6]

 

Like millions of Soviet Union citizens, the Gagarin family suffered during the Nazi occupation of Russia during World War II. Klushino was occupied in November 1941 during the German advance on Moscow and a German officer took over the Gagarin residence. The family were allowed to build a mud hut approximately 3 by 3 metres (10 by 10 ft) inside on the land behind their house, where they spent twenty-one months until the end of the occupation.[7] His two older siblings were deported by the Germans to Poland for slave labour in 1943 and did not return until after the war in 1945.[5][8] In 1946, the family moved to Gzhatsk, where Gagarin continued his secondary education.[7]

 

In 1950, aged 16, Gagarin began an apprenticeship as a foundryman at the Lyubertsy steel plant near Moscow,[5][8] and enrolled at a local "young workers" school for seventh-grade evening classes.[9] After graduating in 1951 from both the seventh grade and the vocational school with honours in mouldmaking and foundry work,[9] he was selected for further training at the Saratov Industrial Technical School, where he studied tractors.[5][8][10] While in Saratov, Gagarin volunteered at a local flying club for weekend training as a Soviet air cadet, where he trained to fly a biplane, and later a Yak-18.[8][10] He earned extra money as a part-time dock labourer on the Volga River.[7]

Soviet Air Force service

 

In 1955, Gagarin was accepted to the 1st Chkalovsky Higher Air Force Pilots School, a flight school in Orenburg.[11][12] He initially began training on the Yak-18 already familiar to him and later graduated to training on the MiG-15 in February 1956.[11] Gagarin twice struggled to land the two-seater trainer aircraft, and risked dismissal from pilot training. However, the commander of the regiment decided to give him another chance at landing. Gagarin's flight instructor gave him a cushion to sit on, which improved his view from the cockpit, and he landed successfully. Having completed his evaluation in a trainer aircraft,[13] Gagarin began flying solo in 1957.[5]

 

On 5 November 1957, Gagarin was commissioned a lieutenant in the Soviet Air Forces having accumulated 166 hours and 47 minutes of flight time. He graduated from flight school the next day and was posted to the Luostari airbase close to the Norwegian border in Murmansk Oblast for a two-year assignment with the Northern Fleet.[14] On 7 July 1959, he was rated Military Pilot 3rd Class.[15] After expressing interest in space exploration following the launch of Luna 3 on 6 October 1959, his recommendation to the Soviet space program was endorsed and forward by Lieutenant Colonel Babushkin.[14][16] By this point, he had accumulated 265 hours of flight time.[14] Gagarin was promoted to the rank of senior lieutenant on 6 November 1959,[15] three weeks after he was interviewed by a medical commission for qualification to the space program.[14]

Soviet space program

Selection and training

See also: Vostok programme

Vostok I capsule on display at the RKK Energiya museum

 

Gagarin's selection for the Vostok programme was overseen by the Central Flight Medical Commission led by Major General Konstantin Fyodorovich Borodin of the Soviet Army Medical Service. He underwent physical and psychological testing conducted at Central Aviation Scientific-Research Hospital, in Moscow, commanded by Colonel A.S. Usanov, a member of the commission. The commission also included Colonel Yevgeniy Anatoliyevich Karpov, who later commanded the training centre, Colonel Vladimir Ivanovich Yazdovskiy, the head physician for Gagarin's flight, and Major-General Aleksandr Nikolayevich Babiychuk, a physician flag officer on the Soviet Air Force General Staff to the Commander in Chief of the Air Force.[17]

 

From a pool of 154 qualified pilots short-listed by their Air Force units, the military physicians chose 29 cosmonaut candidates, of which 20 were approved by the Credential Committee of the Soviet Government. The first twelve including Gagarin were approved on 7 March 1960 and eight more were added in a series of subsequent orders issued until June.[18] Gagarin began training at the Khodynka Airfield in downtown Moscow on 15 March 1960. The training regiment involved vigorous and repetitive physical exercises which Alexei Leonov, a member of the initial group of twelve, described as akin to training for the Olympics Games.[19] In April 1960, they began parachute training in Saratov Oblast and each completed about 40 to 50 jumps from both low and high altitude, and over land and water.[20]

 

Gagarin was a candidate favoured by his peers. When they were asked to vote anonymously for a candidate besides themselves they would like to be the first to fly, all but three chose Gagarin.[21] One of these candidates, Yevgeny Khrunov, believed that Gagarin was very focused and was demanding of himself and others when necessary.[22] On 30 May 1960, Gagarin was further selected for an accelerated training group, known as the Vanguard Six or Sochi Six,[23][nb 3] from which the first cosmonauts of the Vostok programme would be chosen. The other members of the group were Anatoliy Kartashov, Andriyan Nikolayev, Pavel Popovich, German Titov, and Valentin Varlamov. However, Kartashov and Varlamov were injured and replaced by Khrunov and Grigoriy Nelyubov.[25]

 

As several of the candidates selected for the program including Gagarin did not have higher education degrees, they were enrolled into a correspondence course program at Zhukovsky Air Force Engineering Academy. Gagarin enrolled in the program in September 1960 and did not earn his specialist diploma until early 1968.[26][27] Gagarin was also subjected to experiments that were designed to test physical and psychological endurance including oxygen starvation tests in which the cosmonauts were locked in an isolation chamber and the air slowly pumped out. He also trained for the upcoming flight by experiencing g-forces in a centrifuge.[28][25] Psychological tests included placing the candidates in an anechoic chamber in complete isolation; Gagarin was in the chamber on July 26 – August 5.[29][20] In August 1960, a Soviet Air Force doctor evaluated his personality as follows:

 

Modest; embarrasses when his humor gets a little too racy; high degree of intellectual development evident in Yuriy; fantastic memory; distinguishes himself from his colleagues by his sharp and far-ranging sense of attention to his surroundings; a well-developed imagination; quick reactions; persevering, prepares himself painstakingly for his activities and training exercises, handles celestial mechanics and mathematical formulae with ease as well as excels in higher mathematics; does not feel constrained when he has to defend his point of view if he considers himself right; appears that he understands life better than a lot of his friends.[21]

 

The Vanguard Six were given the title of pilot-cosmonaut in January 1961[25] and entered a two-day examination conducted by a special interdepartmental commission led Lieutenant-General Nikolai Kamanin, tasked with ranking of the candidates based on their mission readiness for the first human Vostok mission. On 17 January 1961, they were tested in a simulator at the M. M. Gromov Flight-Research Institute on a full-size mockup of the Vostok capsule. Gagarin, Nikolayev, Popovich, and Titov all received excellent marks on the first day of testing in which they were required to describe the various phases of the mission followed by questions from commission.[22] On the second day, they were given a written examination following which the special commission ranked Gagarin as the best candidate the first mission. He and the next two highest-ranked cosmonauts, Titov and Nelyubov, were sent to Tyuratam for final preparations.[22] Gagarin and Titov were selected to train in the flight-ready spacecraft on 7 April 1961. Historian Asif Siddiqi writes of the final selection:[30]

 

In the end, at the State Commission meeting on April 8, Kamanin stood up and formally nominated Gagarin as the primary pilot and Titov as his backup. Without much discussion, the commission approved the proposal and moved on to other last-minute logistical issues. It was assumed that in the event Gagarin developed health problems prior to liftoff, Titov would take his place, with Nelyubov acting as his backup.

 

Vostok 1

Main article: Vostok 1

 

Poyekhali!

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Gagarin's voice

Problems playing this file? See media help.

 

On 12 April 1961, 6:07 am UTC, the Vostok 3KA-3 (Vostok 1) spacecraft was launched from Baikonur Cosmodrome. Aboard was Gagarin, the first human to travel into space, using the call sign Kedr (Russian: Кедр, Siberian pine or Cedar).[31] The radio communication between the launch control room and Gagarin included the following dialogue at the moment of rocket launch:

 

Korolev: Preliminary stage ... intermediate... main... LIFT-OFF! We wish you a good flight. Everything's all right.

 

Gagarin: Off we go! Goodbye, until [we meet] soon, dear friends.[32][33]

 

Gagarin's farewell to Korolev using the informal phrase Poyekhali! (Russian: Поехали!)[nb 4] later became a popular expression in the Eastern Bloc that was used to refer to the beginning of the Space Age.[35][36] The five first-stage engines fired until the first separation event, when the four side-boosters fell away, leaving the core engine. The core stage then separated while the rocket was in a suborbital trajectory, and the upper stage carried it to orbit. Once the upper stage finished firing, it separated from the spacecraft, which orbited for 108 minutes before returning to Earth in Kazakhstan.[37] Gagarin became the first to orbit the Earth.[31]

File:1961-04-19 First Pictures-Yuri Gagarin-selection.ogvPlay media

An April 1961 newsreel of Gagarin arriving in Moscow to be greeted by First Secretary Nikita Khrushchev.

 

"The feeling of weightlessness was somewhat unfamiliar compared with Earth conditions. Here, you feel as if you were hanging in a horizontal position in straps. You feel as if you are suspended", Gagarin wrote in his post-flight report.[38] He also wrote in his autobiography released the same year that he sang the tune "The Motherland Hears, The Motherland Knows" (Russian: "Родина слышит, Родина знает") during re-entry.[39] Gagarin was qualified a Military Pilot 1st Class and promoted to the rank of major in a special order given during his flight.[15][39]

 

At about 23,000 feet (7,000 m), Gagarin ejected from the descending capsule as planned and landed using a parachute. There were concerns Gagarin's spaceflight record would not be certified by the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI), the world governing body for setting standards and keeping records in the field, which at the time required that the pilot land with the craft.[40] Gagarin and Soviet officials initially refused to admit that he had not landed with his spacecraft,[41] an omission which became apparent after Titov's subsequent flight on Vostok 2 four months later. Gagarin's spaceflight records were nonetheless certified and again reaffirmed by the FAI, which revised it rules, and acknowledge that the crucial steps of the safe launch, orbit, and return of the pilot had been accomplished. Gagarin continues to be internationally recognised as the first human in space and first to orbit the Earth.[42]

After the Vostok 1 flight

Gagarin in Warsaw, 1961

 

Gagarin's flight was a triumph for the Soviet space program and he became a national hero of the Soviet Union and Eastern Bloc, as well as a worldwide celebrity. Newspapers around the globe published his biography and details of his flight. He was escorted in a long motorcade of high-ranking officials through the streets of Moscow to the Kremlin where, in a lavish ceremony, Nikita Khrushchev awarded him the title Hero of the Soviet Union. Other cities in the Soviet Union also held mass demonstrations, the scale of which were second only to World War II Victory Parades.[43]

Gagarin and Valentina Tereshkova (seated to his right) sign autographs in 1964

 

Gagarin gained a reputation as an adept public figure and was noted for his charismatic smile.[44][45][46] On 15 April 1961, accompanied by official from the Soviet Academy of Sciences, he answered questions at a press conference in Moscow reportedly attended by 1,000 reporters.[47] Gagarin visited the United Kingdom three months after the Vostok 1 mission, going to London and Manchester.[48][44] While in Manchester, despite heavy rain, he refused an umbrella, insisted that the roof of the convertible car he was riding in remain open, and stood so the cheering crowds could see him.[44][49] Gagarin toured widely abroad, accepting the invitation of about 30 countries.[50] In just the first four months, he also went to Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Cuba, Czechoslovakia, Finland, Hungary, and Iceland.[51]

 

In 1962, Gagarin began serving as a deputy to the Soviet of the Union,[52] and was elected to the Central Committee of the Young Communist League. He later returned to Star City, the cosmonaut facility, where he spent several years working on designs for a reusable spacecraft. He became a lieutenant colonel of the Soviet Air Forces on 12 June 1962, and received the rank of colonel on 6 November 1963.[15] On 20 December 1963, Gagarin became Deputy Training Director of the Star City cosmonaut training base.[53] Soviet officials, including cosmonaut overseerer Nikolai Kamanin, tried to keep Gagarin away from any flights, being worried about losing their hero in an accident noting that he was "too dear to mankind to risk his life for the sake of an ordinary space flight".[54] Kamanin was also concerned by Gagarin's drinking and believed the sudden rise to fame had taken its toll on the cosmonaut. While acquaintances say Gagarin had been a "sensible drinker", his touring schedule placed him in social situations in which he was increasingly expected to drink alcohol.[5][10]

Gagarin with U.S. Vice President Hubert Humphrey, French Prime Minister Georges Pompidou and the Gemini 4 astronauts at the 1965 Paris Air Show

 

Two years later, he was re-elected as a deputy of the Soviet Union but this time to the Soviet of Nationalities, the upper chamber of legislature.[52] The following year, he began to re-qualify as a fighter pilot[55] and was backup pilot for his friend Vladimir Komarov on the Soyuz 1 flight after five years without piloting duty. Kamanin had opposed Gagarin's reassignment to cosmonaut training; he had gained weight and his flying skills had deteriorated. Despite this, he remained a strong contender for Soyuz 1 until he was replaced by Komarov in April 1966 and reassigned to Soyuz 3.[56]

 

The Soyuz 1 launch was rushed due to implicit political pressures[57] and despite Gagarin's protests that additional safety precautions were necessary.[58] Gagarin accompanied Komarov to the rocket before launch and relayed instructions to Komarov from ground control following multiple system failures aboard the spacecraft.[59] Despite their best efforts, Soyuz 1 crash landed after its parachutes failed to open, killing Komarov instantly.[60] After the Soyuz 1 crash, Gagarin was permanently banned from training for and participating in further spaceflights.[61] He was also grounded from flying aircraft solo, a demotion he worked hard to lift. He was temporarily relieved of duties to focus on academics with the promise that he would be able to resume flight training.[62] On 17 February 1968, Gagarin successfully defended his aerospace engineering thesis on the subject of spaceplane aerodynamic configuration and graduated cum laude from Zhukovsky Air Force Engineering Academy.[27][63][62]

Personal life

Gagarin and his wife Valentina clapping at a concert in Moscow in 1964.

Gagarin and his wife Valentina at a concert in Moscow in 1964.

 

Gagarin was a keen sportsman and fond of ice hockey as a goal keeper.[64] He was also a basketball fan and coached the Saratov Industrial Technical School team, as well as being a referee.[65]

 

In 1957, while a cadet in flight school, Gagarin met Valentina Goryacheva at the May Day celebrations at the Red Square in Moscow.[66] She was a medical technician who graduated from Orenburg Medical School.[8][10] They were married on 7 November 1957,[8] the same day Gagarin graduated from Orenburg, and they had two daughters.[67][68] Yelena Yurievna Gagarina, born 1959,[68] is an art historian who has worked as the director-general of the Moscow Kremlin Museums since 2001;[69][70] and Galina Yurievna Gagarina, born 1961,[68] is a professor of economics and the department chair at Plekhanov Russian University of Economics in Moscow.[69][71] Following his rise to fame, at a Black Sea resort in September 1961, he was reportedly caught by his wife during a liaison with a nurse who had aided him after a boating incident. He attempted to escape through a window and jumped off a second floor balcony. The resulting injury left a permanent scar above his left eyebrow.[5][10]

Death

Plaque on a brick wall with inscription: Юрий Алексеевич Гагарин, 1934-03-09–1968-03-27

Plaque indicating Gagarin's interment in the Kremlin Wall

 

On 27 March 1968, while on a routine training flight from Chkalovsky Air Base, Gagarin and flight instructor Vladimir Seryogin died when their MiG-15UTI crashed near the town of Kirzhach. The bodies of Gagarin and Seryogin were cremated and their ashes were buried in the walls of the Kremlin.[72] Wrapped in secrecy, the cause of the crash that killed Gagarin is uncertain and became the subject of several theories.[73][74] At least three investigations into the crash were conducted separately by the Air Force, official government commissions, and the KGB.[75][76] According to a biography of Gagarin by Jamie Doran and Piers Bizony, Starman: The Truth Behind the Legend of Yuri Gagarin, the KGB worked "not just alongside the Air Force and the official commission members but against them."[75]

 

The KGB's report declassified in March 2003 dismissed various conspiracy theories and instead indicated the actions of airbase personnel contributed to the crash. The report states that an air-traffic controller provided Gagarin with outdated weather information and that by the time of his flight, conditions had deteriorated significantly. Ground crew also left external fuel tanks attached to the aircraft. Gagarin's planned flight activities needed clear weather and no outboard tanks. The investigation concluded Gagarin's aircraft entered a spin, either due to a bird strike or because of a sudden move to avoid another aircraft. Because of the out-of-date weather report, the crew believed their altitude was higher than it was and could not react properly to bring the MiG-15 out of its spin.[76] Another theory, advanced in 2005 by the original crash investigator, hypothesizes that a cabin air vent was accidentally left open by the crew or the previous pilot, leading to oxygen deprivation and leaving the crew incapable of controlling the aircraft.[73] A similar theory, published in Air & Space magazine, is that the crew detected the open vent and followed procedure by executing a rapid dive to a lower altitude. This dive caused them to lose consciousness and crash.[74]

 

On 12 April 2007, the Kremlin vetoed a new investigation into the death of Gagarin. Government officials said they saw no reason to begin a new investigation.[77] In April 2011, documents from a 1968 commission set up by the Central Committee of the Communist Party to investigate the accident were declassified. The documents revealed that the commission's original conclusion was that Gagarin or Seryogin had manoeuvered sharply, either to avoid a weather balloon or to avoid "entry into the upper limit of the first layer of cloud cover", leading the jet into a "super-critical flight regime and to its stalling in complex meteorological conditions".[78]

A Russian MiG-15UTI, the same type as Gagarin was flying

 

Cosmonaut Alexei Leonov, a member of a state commission established to investigate Gagarin's death, was conducting parachute training sessions that day and heard "two loud booms in the distance". He believes that a Sukhoi Su-15 was flying below its minimum altitude and, "without realizing it because of the terrible weather conditions, he passed within 10 or 20 meters of Yuri and Seregin's plane while breaking the sound barrier". The resulting turbulence would have sent the MiG-15UTI into an uncontrolled spin. Leonov said the first boom he heard was that of the jet breaking the sound barrier and the second was Gagarin's plane crashing.[79] In a June 2013 interview with Russian television network RT, Leonov said a report on the incident confirmed the presence of a second, "unauthorized" Su-15 flying in the area. However, as a condition of being allowed to discuss the declassified report, Leonov was barred from disclosing the name of the Su-15 pilot who was 80 years old and in poor health as of 2013.[80]

Awards and honours

Medals and orders of merit

Jânio Quadros, President of Brazil, decorated Gagarin in 1961.

 

On 14 April 1961, Gagarin was honoured with a 12-mile (19 km) parade attended by millions of people that concluded at the Red Square. After a short speech, he was bestowed the Hero of the Soviet Union,[81][82] Order of Lenin,[81] Merited Master of Sports of the Soviet Union[83] and the first Pilot-Cosmonaut of the USSR.[82] On 15 April, the Soviet Academy of Sciences awarded him with the Konstantin Tsiolkovsky Gold Medal, named after the Russian pioneer of space aeronautics.[84] Gagarin had also been awarded four Soviet commemorative medals over the course of his career.[15]

 

He was honoured as a Hero of Socialist Labor (Czechoslovakia) on 29 April 1961,[85][86] and Hero of Socialist Labor (Bulgaria, including the Order of Georgi Dimitrov) on 24 May.[15][chronology citation needed] On the eighth anniversary of the beginning of Cuban Revolution (26 July), President Osvaldo Dorticos of Cuba presented him with the first Commander of the Order of Playa Girón, a newly created medal.[87]

 

Gagarin was also awarded the 1960 Gold Air Medal and the 1961 De la Vaulx Medal from the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale in Switzerland.[88] He received numerous awards from other nations that year, including the Star of the Republic of Indonesia (2nd Class), the Order of the Cross of Grunwald (1st Degree) in Poland, the Order of the Flag of the Republic of Hungary, the Hero of Labor award from Democratic Republic of Vietnam,[15] the Italian Columbus Day Medal,[89] and a Gold Medal from the British Interplanetary Society.[90][91] President Jânio Quadros of Brazil decorated Gagarin on 2 August 1961 with the Order of Aeronautical Merit, Commander grade.[92] During a tour of Egypt in late January 1962, Gagarin received the Order of the Nile[93] and the golden keys to the gates of Cairo.[50] On 22 October 1963, Gagarin and Valentina Tereshkova were honoured with the Order of Karl Marx from the German Democratic Republic.[94]

Tributes

 

The date of Gagarin's space flight, 12 April, has been commemorated. Since 1962, it has been celebrated in the USSR and most of its former territories as Cosmonautics Day.[95] Since 2000, Yuri's Night, an international celebration, is held annually to commemorate milestones in space exploration.[96] In 2011, it was declared the International Day of Human Space Flight by the United Nations.[97]

Yuri Gagarin statue at the Royal Greenwich Observatory in London

 

A number of buildings and locations have been named for Gagarin. The Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center in Star City, Russia, was named on 30 April 1968.[98] The launch pad at Baikonur Cosmodrome from which Sputnik 1 and Vostok 1 were launched is now known as Gagarin's Start. Gagarin Raion in Sevastopol, Ukraine, was named after him during the period of the Soviet Union. The Russian Air Force Academy was renamed Gagarin Air Force Academy in 1968.[99] A street in Warsaw, Poland, is called Yuri Gagarin Street.[100] The town of Gagarin, Armenia was renamed in his honour in 1961.[101]

 

Gagarin has been honoured on the Moon by astronauts and astronomers. During the American space program's Apollo 11 mission in 1969, astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin left a memorial satchel containing medals commemorating Gagarin and fellow cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov on the Moon's surface.[102][103] In 1971, Apollo 15 astronauts David Scott and James Irwin left the small Fallen Astronaut sculpture at their landing site as a memorial to the American astronauts and Soviet cosmonauts who died in the Space Race; the names on its plaque included Yuri Gagarin and 14 others.[104][105] In 1970, a 262 km (163 mi)-wide crater on the far side after him.[106] Gagarin was inducted as a member of the 1976 inaugural class of the International Space Hall of Fame in New Mexico.[107]

 

Gagarin is memorialised in music; a cycle of Soviet patriotic songs titled The Constellation Gagarin (Russian: Созвездье Гагарина, tr. Sozvezdie Gagarina) was written by Aleksandra Pakhmutova and Nikolai Dobronravov in 1970–1971.[108] The most famous of these songs refers to Gagarin's poyekhali!: in the lyrics, "He said 'let's go!' He waved his hand".[35][108] He was the inspiration for the pieces "Hey Gagarin" by Jean-Michel Jarre on Métamorphoses, "Gagarin" by Public Service Broadcasting, and "Gagarin, I loved you" by Undervud.[109]

Russian ten-ruble commemorating Gagarin in 2001

 

Vessels have been named for Gagarin; Soviet tracking ship Kosmonavt Yuri Gagarin was built in 1971[110] and the Armenian airline Armavia named their first Sukhoi Superjet 100 in his honour in 2011.[111]

 

Two commemorative coins were issued in the Soviet Union to honour the 20th and 30th anniversaries of his flight: a one-ruble coin in copper-nickel (1981) and a three-ruble coin in silver (1991). In 2001, to commemorate the 40th anniversary of Gagarin's flight, a series of four coins bearing his likeness was issued in Russia; it consisted of a two-ruble coin in copper-nickel, a three-ruble coin in silver, a ten-ruble coin in brass-copper and nickel, and a 100-ruble coin in silver.[112] In 2011, Russia issued a 1,000-ruble coin in gold and a three-ruble coin in silver to mark the 50th anniversary of his flight.[113]

 

In 2008, the Kontinental Hockey League named their championship trophy the Gagarin Cup.[114] In a 2010 Space Foundation survey, Gagarin was ranked as the sixth-most-popular space hero, tied with Star Trek's fictional James T. Kirk.[115] A Russian docudrama titled Gagarin: First in Space was released in 2013. Previous attempts at portraying Gagarin were disallowed; his family took legal action over his portrayal in a fictional drama and vetoed a musical.[116]

Statues and monuments

 

There are statues of Gagarin and monuments to him located in Gagarin (Smolensk Oblast), Orenburg, Cheboksary, Irkutsk, Izhevsk, Komsomolsk-on-Amur, and Yoshkar-Ola in Russia, as well as in Nicosia, Cyprus, Druzhkivka, Ukraine, Karaganda, Kazakhstan, and Tiraspol, Moldova. On 4 June 1980, Monument to Yuri Gagarin in Gagarin Square, Leninsky Avenue, Moscow, was opened.[117] The monument is mounted to a 38 m (125 ft) tall pedestal and is constructed of titanium. Beside the column is a replica of the descent module used during his spaceflight.[118]

Bust of Gagarin at Birla Planetarium in Kolkata, India

 

In 2011, a statue of Gagarin was unveiled at Admiralty Arch in The Mall in London, opposite the permanent sculpture of James Cook. It is a copy of the statue outside Gagarin's former school in Lyubertsy.[119] In 2013, the statue was moved to a permanent location outside the Royal Observatory, Greenwich.[120]

 

In 2012, a statue was unveiled at the site of NASA's original spaceflight headquarters on South Wayside Drive in Houston. The sculpture was completed in 2011 by artist and cosmonaut Alexei Leonov and was a gift to Houston by various Russian organisations. Houston Mayor Annise Parker, NASA Administrator Charles Bolden, and Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak were present for the dedication.[121][122] The Russian Federation presented a bust of Gagarin to several cities in India including one that was unveiled at the Birla Planetarium in Kolkata in February 2012.[123]

 

In April 2018, a bust of Gagarin erected on the street in Belgrade, Serbia, that bears his name was removed, after less than week. A new work was commissioned following the outcry over the disproportionately small size of its head which locals said was an "insult" to Gagarin.[124][125] Belgrade City Manager Goran Vesic stated that neither the city, the Serbian Ministry of Culture, nor the foundation that financed it had prior knowledge of the design.[126]

50th anniversary

50th anniversary stamp of Ukraine

 

The 50th anniversary of Gagarin's journey into space was marked in 2011 by tributes around the world. A film titled First Orbit was shot from the International Space Station, combining sound recordings from the original flight with footage of the route taken by Gagarin.[127] The Russian, American, and Italian crew of Expedition 27 aboard the ISS sent a special video message to wish the people of the world a "Happy Yuri's Night", wearing shirts with an image of Gagarin.[128]

 

The Central Bank of the Russian Federation released gold and silver coins to commemorate the anniversary.[129] The Soyuz TMA-21 spacecraft was named Gagarin with the launch in April 2011 to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the first manned space mission.

Friday, October 7, 2022

 

On October 7, the Vanderbilt MPH Program celebrated its 25th anniversary and the Global Health track’s 10th anniversary!

 

Alumni, students, faculty, and staff were invited to connect with classmates, friends, mentors, and colleagues and celebrate 25 years of Vanderbilt’s Master of Public Health Program and 10 years of the program’s Global Health track. Attendees toasted to the MPH Program’s first alumni award recipients, too!

 

Photo by Terry Wyatt, www.terrywyattphotography.com

 

Nashville, TN

Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin [nb 1] (9 March 1934 – 27 March 1968) was a Soviet Air Forces pilot and cosmonaut who became the first human to journey into outer space, achieving a major milestone in the Space Race; his capsule Vostok 1 completed one orbit of Earth on 12 April 1961. Gagarin became an international celebrity and was awarded many medals and titles, including Hero of the Soviet Union, his nation's highest honour.

 

Vostok 1 was Gagarin's only spaceflight but he served as the backup crew to the Soyuz 1 mission, which ended in a fatal crash, killing his friend and fellow cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov. Gagarin later served as the deputy training director of the Cosmonaut Training Centre, which was subsequently named after him. He was elected as a deputy to the Soviet of the Union in 1962 and then to the Soviet of Nationalities, respectively the lower and upper chambers of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union. Gagarin died in 1968 when the MiG-15 training jet he was piloting with his flight instructor Vladimir Seryogin crashed near the town of Kirzhach.

Contents

 

1 Early life and education

2 Soviet Air Force service

3 Soviet space program

3.1 Selection and training

3.2 Vostok 1

4 After the Vostok 1 flight

5 Personal life

6 Death

7 Awards and honours

7.1 Medals and orders of merit

7.2 Tributes

7.3 Statues and monuments

7.4 50th anniversary

8 See also

9 Notes

10 References

10.1 Sources

11 Further reading

12 External links

 

Early life and education

 

Yuri Gagarin was born 9 March 1934 in the village of Klushino,[1] near Gzhatsk (renamed Gagarin in 1968 after his death).[2] His parents worked on a collective farm:[3] Alexey Ivanovich Gagarin as a carpenter and Anna Timofeyevna Gagarina as a dairy farmer.[nb 2][4] Yuri was the third of four children: his siblings were brothers Valentin (1924) and Boris (1936), and sister Zoya (1927).[5][6]

 

Like millions of Soviet Union citizens, the Gagarin family suffered during the Nazi occupation of Russia during World War II. Klushino was occupied in November 1941 during the German advance on Moscow and a German officer took over the Gagarin residence. The family were allowed to build a mud hut approximately 3 by 3 metres (10 by 10 ft) inside on the land behind their house, where they spent twenty-one months until the end of the occupation.[7] His two older siblings were deported by the Germans to Poland for slave labour in 1943 and did not return until after the war in 1945.[5][8] In 1946, the family moved to Gzhatsk, where Gagarin continued his secondary education.[7]

 

In 1950, aged 16, Gagarin began an apprenticeship as a foundryman at the Lyubertsy steel plant near Moscow,[5][8] and enrolled at a local "young workers" school for seventh-grade evening classes.[9] After graduating in 1951 from both the seventh grade and the vocational school with honours in mouldmaking and foundry work,[9] he was selected for further training at the Saratov Industrial Technical School, where he studied tractors.[5][8][10] While in Saratov, Gagarin volunteered at a local flying club for weekend training as a Soviet air cadet, where he trained to fly a biplane, and later a Yak-18.[8][10] He earned extra money as a part-time dock labourer on the Volga River.[7]

Soviet Air Force service

 

In 1955, Gagarin was accepted to the 1st Chkalovsky Higher Air Force Pilots School, a flight school in Orenburg.[11][12] He initially began training on the Yak-18 already familiar to him and later graduated to training on the MiG-15 in February 1956.[11] Gagarin twice struggled to land the two-seater trainer aircraft, and risked dismissal from pilot training. However, the commander of the regiment decided to give him another chance at landing. Gagarin's flight instructor gave him a cushion to sit on, which improved his view from the cockpit, and he landed successfully. Having completed his evaluation in a trainer aircraft,[13] Gagarin began flying solo in 1957.[5]

 

On 5 November 1957, Gagarin was commissioned a lieutenant in the Soviet Air Forces having accumulated 166 hours and 47 minutes of flight time. He graduated from flight school the next day and was posted to the Luostari airbase close to the Norwegian border in Murmansk Oblast for a two-year assignment with the Northern Fleet.[14] On 7 July 1959, he was rated Military Pilot 3rd Class.[15] After expressing interest in space exploration following the launch of Luna 3 on 6 October 1959, his recommendation to the Soviet space program was endorsed and forward by Lieutenant Colonel Babushkin.[14][16] By this point, he had accumulated 265 hours of flight time.[14] Gagarin was promoted to the rank of senior lieutenant on 6 November 1959,[15] three weeks after he was interviewed by a medical commission for qualification to the space program.[14]

Soviet space program

Selection and training

See also: Vostok programme

Vostok I capsule on display at the RKK Energiya museum

 

Gagarin's selection for the Vostok programme was overseen by the Central Flight Medical Commission led by Major General Konstantin Fyodorovich Borodin of the Soviet Army Medical Service. He underwent physical and psychological testing conducted at Central Aviation Scientific-Research Hospital, in Moscow, commanded by Colonel A.S. Usanov, a member of the commission. The commission also included Colonel Yevgeniy Anatoliyevich Karpov, who later commanded the training centre, Colonel Vladimir Ivanovich Yazdovskiy, the head physician for Gagarin's flight, and Major-General Aleksandr Nikolayevich Babiychuk, a physician flag officer on the Soviet Air Force General Staff to the Commander in Chief of the Air Force.[17]

 

From a pool of 154 qualified pilots short-listed by their Air Force units, the military physicians chose 29 cosmonaut candidates, of which 20 were approved by the Credential Committee of the Soviet Government. The first twelve including Gagarin were approved on 7 March 1960 and eight more were added in a series of subsequent orders issued until June.[18] Gagarin began training at the Khodynka Airfield in downtown Moscow on 15 March 1960. The training regiment involved vigorous and repetitive physical exercises which Alexei Leonov, a member of the initial group of twelve, described as akin to training for the Olympics Games.[19] In April 1960, they began parachute training in Saratov Oblast and each completed about 40 to 50 jumps from both low and high altitude, and over land and water.[20]

 

Gagarin was a candidate favoured by his peers. When they were asked to vote anonymously for a candidate besides themselves they would like to be the first to fly, all but three chose Gagarin.[21] One of these candidates, Yevgeny Khrunov, believed that Gagarin was very focused and was demanding of himself and others when necessary.[22] On 30 May 1960, Gagarin was further selected for an accelerated training group, known as the Vanguard Six or Sochi Six,[23][nb 3] from which the first cosmonauts of the Vostok programme would be chosen. The other members of the group were Anatoliy Kartashov, Andriyan Nikolayev, Pavel Popovich, German Titov, and Valentin Varlamov. However, Kartashov and Varlamov were injured and replaced by Khrunov and Grigoriy Nelyubov.[25]

 

As several of the candidates selected for the program including Gagarin did not have higher education degrees, they were enrolled into a correspondence course program at Zhukovsky Air Force Engineering Academy. Gagarin enrolled in the program in September 1960 and did not earn his specialist diploma until early 1968.[26][27] Gagarin was also subjected to experiments that were designed to test physical and psychological endurance including oxygen starvation tests in which the cosmonauts were locked in an isolation chamber and the air slowly pumped out. He also trained for the upcoming flight by experiencing g-forces in a centrifuge.[28][25] Psychological tests included placing the candidates in an anechoic chamber in complete isolation; Gagarin was in the chamber on July 26 – August 5.[29][20] In August 1960, a Soviet Air Force doctor evaluated his personality as follows:

 

Modest; embarrasses when his humor gets a little too racy; high degree of intellectual development evident in Yuriy; fantastic memory; distinguishes himself from his colleagues by his sharp and far-ranging sense of attention to his surroundings; a well-developed imagination; quick reactions; persevering, prepares himself painstakingly for his activities and training exercises, handles celestial mechanics and mathematical formulae with ease as well as excels in higher mathematics; does not feel constrained when he has to defend his point of view if he considers himself right; appears that he understands life better than a lot of his friends.[21]

 

The Vanguard Six were given the title of pilot-cosmonaut in January 1961[25] and entered a two-day examination conducted by a special interdepartmental commission led Lieutenant-General Nikolai Kamanin, tasked with ranking of the candidates based on their mission readiness for the first human Vostok mission. On 17 January 1961, they were tested in a simulator at the M. M. Gromov Flight-Research Institute on a full-size mockup of the Vostok capsule. Gagarin, Nikolayev, Popovich, and Titov all received excellent marks on the first day of testing in which they were required to describe the various phases of the mission followed by questions from commission.[22] On the second day, they were given a written examination following which the special commission ranked Gagarin as the best candidate the first mission. He and the next two highest-ranked cosmonauts, Titov and Nelyubov, were sent to Tyuratam for final preparations.[22] Gagarin and Titov were selected to train in the flight-ready spacecraft on 7 April 1961. Historian Asif Siddiqi writes of the final selection:[30]

 

In the end, at the State Commission meeting on April 8, Kamanin stood up and formally nominated Gagarin as the primary pilot and Titov as his backup. Without much discussion, the commission approved the proposal and moved on to other last-minute logistical issues. It was assumed that in the event Gagarin developed health problems prior to liftoff, Titov would take his place, with Nelyubov acting as his backup.

 

Vostok 1

Main article: Vostok 1

 

Poyekhali!

Menu

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Gagarin's voice

Problems playing this file? See media help.

 

On 12 April 1961, 6:07 am UTC, the Vostok 3KA-3 (Vostok 1) spacecraft was launched from Baikonur Cosmodrome. Aboard was Gagarin, the first human to travel into space, using the call sign Kedr (Russian: Кедр, Siberian pine or Cedar).[31] The radio communication between the launch control room and Gagarin included the following dialogue at the moment of rocket launch:

 

Korolev: Preliminary stage ... intermediate... main... LIFT-OFF! We wish you a good flight. Everything's all right.

 

Gagarin: Off we go! Goodbye, until [we meet] soon, dear friends.[32][33]

 

Gagarin's farewell to Korolev using the informal phrase Poyekhali! (Russian: Поехали!)[nb 4] later became a popular expression in the Eastern Bloc that was used to refer to the beginning of the Space Age.[35][36] The five first-stage engines fired until the first separation event, when the four side-boosters fell away, leaving the core engine. The core stage then separated while the rocket was in a suborbital trajectory, and the upper stage carried it to orbit. Once the upper stage finished firing, it separated from the spacecraft, which orbited for 108 minutes before returning to Earth in Kazakhstan.[37] Gagarin became the first to orbit the Earth.[31]

File:1961-04-19 First Pictures-Yuri Gagarin-selection.ogvPlay media

An April 1961 newsreel of Gagarin arriving in Moscow to be greeted by First Secretary Nikita Khrushchev.

 

"The feeling of weightlessness was somewhat unfamiliar compared with Earth conditions. Here, you feel as if you were hanging in a horizontal position in straps. You feel as if you are suspended", Gagarin wrote in his post-flight report.[38] He also wrote in his autobiography released the same year that he sang the tune "The Motherland Hears, The Motherland Knows" (Russian: "Родина слышит, Родина знает") during re-entry.[39] Gagarin was qualified a Military Pilot 1st Class and promoted to the rank of major in a special order given during his flight.[15][39]

 

At about 23,000 feet (7,000 m), Gagarin ejected from the descending capsule as planned and landed using a parachute. There were concerns Gagarin's spaceflight record would not be certified by the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI), the world governing body for setting standards and keeping records in the field, which at the time required that the pilot land with the craft.[40] Gagarin and Soviet officials initially refused to admit that he had not landed with his spacecraft,[41] an omission which became apparent after Titov's subsequent flight on Vostok 2 four months later. Gagarin's spaceflight records were nonetheless certified and again reaffirmed by the FAI, which revised it rules, and acknowledge that the crucial steps of the safe launch, orbit, and return of the pilot had been accomplished. Gagarin continues to be internationally recognised as the first human in space and first to orbit the Earth.[42]

After the Vostok 1 flight

Gagarin in Warsaw, 1961

 

Gagarin's flight was a triumph for the Soviet space program and he became a national hero of the Soviet Union and Eastern Bloc, as well as a worldwide celebrity. Newspapers around the globe published his biography and details of his flight. He was escorted in a long motorcade of high-ranking officials through the streets of Moscow to the Kremlin where, in a lavish ceremony, Nikita Khrushchev awarded him the title Hero of the Soviet Union. Other cities in the Soviet Union also held mass demonstrations, the scale of which were second only to World War II Victory Parades.[43]

Gagarin and Valentina Tereshkova (seated to his right) sign autographs in 1964

 

Gagarin gained a reputation as an adept public figure and was noted for his charismatic smile.[44][45][46] On 15 April 1961, accompanied by official from the Soviet Academy of Sciences, he answered questions at a press conference in Moscow reportedly attended by 1,000 reporters.[47] Gagarin visited the United Kingdom three months after the Vostok 1 mission, going to London and Manchester.[48][44] While in Manchester, despite heavy rain, he refused an umbrella, insisted that the roof of the convertible car he was riding in remain open, and stood so the cheering crowds could see him.[44][49] Gagarin toured widely abroad, accepting the invitation of about 30 countries.[50] In just the first four months, he also went to Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Cuba, Czechoslovakia, Finland, Hungary, and Iceland.[51]

 

In 1962, Gagarin began serving as a deputy to the Soviet of the Union,[52] and was elected to the Central Committee of the Young Communist League. He later returned to Star City, the cosmonaut facility, where he spent several years working on designs for a reusable spacecraft. He became a lieutenant colonel of the Soviet Air Forces on 12 June 1962, and received the rank of colonel on 6 November 1963.[15] On 20 December 1963, Gagarin became Deputy Training Director of the Star City cosmonaut training base.[53] Soviet officials, including cosmonaut overseerer Nikolai Kamanin, tried to keep Gagarin away from any flights, being worried about losing their hero in an accident noting that he was "too dear to mankind to risk his life for the sake of an ordinary space flight".[54] Kamanin was also concerned by Gagarin's drinking and believed the sudden rise to fame had taken its toll on the cosmonaut. While acquaintances say Gagarin had been a "sensible drinker", his touring schedule placed him in social situations in which he was increasingly expected to drink alcohol.[5][10]

Gagarin with U.S. Vice President Hubert Humphrey, French Prime Minister Georges Pompidou and the Gemini 4 astronauts at the 1965 Paris Air Show

 

Two years later, he was re-elected as a deputy of the Soviet Union but this time to the Soviet of Nationalities, the upper chamber of legislature.[52] The following year, he began to re-qualify as a fighter pilot[55] and was backup pilot for his friend Vladimir Komarov on the Soyuz 1 flight after five years without piloting duty. Kamanin had opposed Gagarin's reassignment to cosmonaut training; he had gained weight and his flying skills had deteriorated. Despite this, he remained a strong contender for Soyuz 1 until he was replaced by Komarov in April 1966 and reassigned to Soyuz 3.[56]

 

The Soyuz 1 launch was rushed due to implicit political pressures[57] and despite Gagarin's protests that additional safety precautions were necessary.[58] Gagarin accompanied Komarov to the rocket before launch and relayed instructions to Komarov from ground control following multiple system failures aboard the spacecraft.[59] Despite their best efforts, Soyuz 1 crash landed after its parachutes failed to open, killing Komarov instantly.[60] After the Soyuz 1 crash, Gagarin was permanently banned from training for and participating in further spaceflights.[61] He was also grounded from flying aircraft solo, a demotion he worked hard to lift. He was temporarily relieved of duties to focus on academics with the promise that he would be able to resume flight training.[62] On 17 February 1968, Gagarin successfully defended his aerospace engineering thesis on the subject of spaceplane aerodynamic configuration and graduated cum laude from Zhukovsky Air Force Engineering Academy.[27][63][62]

Personal life

Gagarin and his wife Valentina clapping at a concert in Moscow in 1964.

Gagarin and his wife Valentina at a concert in Moscow in 1964.

 

Gagarin was a keen sportsman and fond of ice hockey as a goal keeper.[64] He was also a basketball fan and coached the Saratov Industrial Technical School team, as well as being a referee.[65]

 

In 1957, while a cadet in flight school, Gagarin met Valentina Goryacheva at the May Day celebrations at the Red Square in Moscow.[66] She was a medical technician who graduated from Orenburg Medical School.[8][10] They were married on 7 November 1957,[8] the same day Gagarin graduated from Orenburg, and they had two daughters.[67][68] Yelena Yurievna Gagarina, born 1959,[68] is an art historian who has worked as the director-general of the Moscow Kremlin Museums since 2001;[69][70] and Galina Yurievna Gagarina, born 1961,[68] is a professor of economics and the department chair at Plekhanov Russian University of Economics in Moscow.[69][71] Following his rise to fame, at a Black Sea resort in September 1961, he was reportedly caught by his wife during a liaison with a nurse who had aided him after a boating incident. He attempted to escape through a window and jumped off a second floor balcony. The resulting injury left a permanent scar above his left eyebrow.[5][10]

Death

Plaque on a brick wall with inscription: Юрий Алексеевич Гагарин, 1934-03-09–1968-03-27

Plaque indicating Gagarin's interment in the Kremlin Wall

 

On 27 March 1968, while on a routine training flight from Chkalovsky Air Base, Gagarin and flight instructor Vladimir Seryogin died when their MiG-15UTI crashed near the town of Kirzhach. The bodies of Gagarin and Seryogin were cremated and their ashes were buried in the walls of the Kremlin.[72] Wrapped in secrecy, the cause of the crash that killed Gagarin is uncertain and became the subject of several theories.[73][74] At least three investigations into the crash were conducted separately by the Air Force, official government commissions, and the KGB.[75][76] According to a biography of Gagarin by Jamie Doran and Piers Bizony, Starman: The Truth Behind the Legend of Yuri Gagarin, the KGB worked "not just alongside the Air Force and the official commission members but against them."[75]

 

The KGB's report declassified in March 2003 dismissed various conspiracy theories and instead indicated the actions of airbase personnel contributed to the crash. The report states that an air-traffic controller provided Gagarin with outdated weather information and that by the time of his flight, conditions had deteriorated significantly. Ground crew also left external fuel tanks attached to the aircraft. Gagarin's planned flight activities needed clear weather and no outboard tanks. The investigation concluded Gagarin's aircraft entered a spin, either due to a bird strike or because of a sudden move to avoid another aircraft. Because of the out-of-date weather report, the crew believed their altitude was higher than it was and could not react properly to bring the MiG-15 out of its spin.[76] Another theory, advanced in 2005 by the original crash investigator, hypothesizes that a cabin air vent was accidentally left open by the crew or the previous pilot, leading to oxygen deprivation and leaving the crew incapable of controlling the aircraft.[73] A similar theory, published in Air & Space magazine, is that the crew detected the open vent and followed procedure by executing a rapid dive to a lower altitude. This dive caused them to lose consciousness and crash.[74]

 

On 12 April 2007, the Kremlin vetoed a new investigation into the death of Gagarin. Government officials said they saw no reason to begin a new investigation.[77] In April 2011, documents from a 1968 commission set up by the Central Committee of the Communist Party to investigate the accident were declassified. The documents revealed that the commission's original conclusion was that Gagarin or Seryogin had manoeuvered sharply, either to avoid a weather balloon or to avoid "entry into the upper limit of the first layer of cloud cover", leading the jet into a "super-critical flight regime and to its stalling in complex meteorological conditions".[78]

A Russian MiG-15UTI, the same type as Gagarin was flying

 

Cosmonaut Alexei Leonov, a member of a state commission established to investigate Gagarin's death, was conducting parachute training sessions that day and heard "two loud booms in the distance". He believes that a Sukhoi Su-15 was flying below its minimum altitude and, "without realizing it because of the terrible weather conditions, he passed within 10 or 20 meters of Yuri and Seregin's plane while breaking the sound barrier". The resulting turbulence would have sent the MiG-15UTI into an uncontrolled spin. Leonov said the first boom he heard was that of the jet breaking the sound barrier and the second was Gagarin's plane crashing.[79] In a June 2013 interview with Russian television network RT, Leonov said a report on the incident confirmed the presence of a second, "unauthorized" Su-15 flying in the area. However, as a condition of being allowed to discuss the declassified report, Leonov was barred from disclosing the name of the Su-15 pilot who was 80 years old and in poor health as of 2013.[80]

Awards and honours

Medals and orders of merit

Jânio Quadros, President of Brazil, decorated Gagarin in 1961.

 

On 14 April 1961, Gagarin was honoured with a 12-mile (19 km) parade attended by millions of people that concluded at the Red Square. After a short speech, he was bestowed the Hero of the Soviet Union,[81][82] Order of Lenin,[81] Merited Master of Sports of the Soviet Union[83] and the first Pilot-Cosmonaut of the USSR.[82] On 15 April, the Soviet Academy of Sciences awarded him with the Konstantin Tsiolkovsky Gold Medal, named after the Russian pioneer of space aeronautics.[84] Gagarin had also been awarded four Soviet commemorative medals over the course of his career.[15]

 

He was honoured as a Hero of Socialist Labor (Czechoslovakia) on 29 April 1961,[85][86] and Hero of Socialist Labor (Bulgaria, including the Order of Georgi Dimitrov) on 24 May.[15][chronology citation needed] On the eighth anniversary of the beginning of Cuban Revolution (26 July), President Osvaldo Dorticos of Cuba presented him with the first Commander of the Order of Playa Girón, a newly created medal.[87]

 

Gagarin was also awarded the 1960 Gold Air Medal and the 1961 De la Vaulx Medal from the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale in Switzerland.[88] He received numerous awards from other nations that year, including the Star of the Republic of Indonesia (2nd Class), the Order of the Cross of Grunwald (1st Degree) in Poland, the Order of the Flag of the Republic of Hungary, the Hero of Labor award from Democratic Republic of Vietnam,[15] the Italian Columbus Day Medal,[89] and a Gold Medal from the British Interplanetary Society.[90][91] President Jânio Quadros of Brazil decorated Gagarin on 2 August 1961 with the Order of Aeronautical Merit, Commander grade.[92] During a tour of Egypt in late January 1962, Gagarin received the Order of the Nile[93] and the golden keys to the gates of Cairo.[50] On 22 October 1963, Gagarin and Valentina Tereshkova were honoured with the Order of Karl Marx from the German Democratic Republic.[94]

Tributes

 

The date of Gagarin's space flight, 12 April, has been commemorated. Since 1962, it has been celebrated in the USSR and most of its former territories as Cosmonautics Day.[95] Since 2000, Yuri's Night, an international celebration, is held annually to commemorate milestones in space exploration.[96] In 2011, it was declared the International Day of Human Space Flight by the United Nations.[97]

Yuri Gagarin statue at the Royal Greenwich Observatory in London

 

A number of buildings and locations have been named for Gagarin. The Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center in Star City, Russia, was named on 30 April 1968.[98] The launch pad at Baikonur Cosmodrome from which Sputnik 1 and Vostok 1 were launched is now known as Gagarin's Start. Gagarin Raion in Sevastopol, Ukraine, was named after him during the period of the Soviet Union. The Russian Air Force Academy was renamed Gagarin Air Force Academy in 1968.[99] A street in Warsaw, Poland, is called Yuri Gagarin Street.[100] The town of Gagarin, Armenia was renamed in his honour in 1961.[101]

 

Gagarin has been honoured on the Moon by astronauts and astronomers. During the American space program's Apollo 11 mission in 1969, astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin left a memorial satchel containing medals commemorating Gagarin and fellow cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov on the Moon's surface.[102][103] In 1971, Apollo 15 astronauts David Scott and James Irwin left the small Fallen Astronaut sculpture at their landing site as a memorial to the American astronauts and Soviet cosmonauts who died in the Space Race; the names on its plaque included Yuri Gagarin and 14 others.[104][105] In 1970, a 262 km (163 mi)-wide crater on the far side after him.[106] Gagarin was inducted as a member of the 1976 inaugural class of the International Space Hall of Fame in New Mexico.[107]

 

Gagarin is memorialised in music; a cycle of Soviet patriotic songs titled The Constellation Gagarin (Russian: Созвездье Гагарина, tr. Sozvezdie Gagarina) was written by Aleksandra Pakhmutova and Nikolai Dobronravov in 1970–1971.[108] The most famous of these songs refers to Gagarin's poyekhali!: in the lyrics, "He said 'let's go!' He waved his hand".[35][108] He was the inspiration for the pieces "Hey Gagarin" by Jean-Michel Jarre on Métamorphoses, "Gagarin" by Public Service Broadcasting, and "Gagarin, I loved you" by Undervud.[109]

Russian ten-ruble commemorating Gagarin in 2001

 

Vessels have been named for Gagarin; Soviet tracking ship Kosmonavt Yuri Gagarin was built in 1971[110] and the Armenian airline Armavia named their first Sukhoi Superjet 100 in his honour in 2011.[111]

 

Two commemorative coins were issued in the Soviet Union to honour the 20th and 30th anniversaries of his flight: a one-ruble coin in copper-nickel (1981) and a three-ruble coin in silver (1991). In 2001, to commemorate the 40th anniversary of Gagarin's flight, a series of four coins bearing his likeness was issued in Russia; it consisted of a two-ruble coin in copper-nickel, a three-ruble coin in silver, a ten-ruble coin in brass-copper and nickel, and a 100-ruble coin in silver.[112] In 2011, Russia issued a 1,000-ruble coin in gold and a three-ruble coin in silver to mark the 50th anniversary of his flight.[113]

 

In 2008, the Kontinental Hockey League named their championship trophy the Gagarin Cup.[114] In a 2010 Space Foundation survey, Gagarin was ranked as the sixth-most-popular space hero, tied with Star Trek's fictional James T. Kirk.[115] A Russian docudrama titled Gagarin: First in Space was released in 2013. Previous attempts at portraying Gagarin were disallowed; his family took legal action over his portrayal in a fictional drama and vetoed a musical.[116]

Statues and monuments

 

There are statues of Gagarin and monuments to him located in Gagarin (Smolensk Oblast), Orenburg, Cheboksary, Irkutsk, Izhevsk, Komsomolsk-on-Amur, and Yoshkar-Ola in Russia, as well as in Nicosia, Cyprus, Druzhkivka, Ukraine, Karaganda, Kazakhstan, and Tiraspol, Moldova. On 4 June 1980, Monument to Yuri Gagarin in Gagarin Square, Leninsky Avenue, Moscow, was opened.[117] The monument is mounted to a 38 m (125 ft) tall pedestal and is constructed of titanium. Beside the column is a replica of the descent module used during his spaceflight.[118]

Bust of Gagarin at Birla Planetarium in Kolkata, India

 

In 2011, a statue of Gagarin was unveiled at Admiralty Arch in The Mall in London, opposite the permanent sculpture of James Cook. It is a copy of the statue outside Gagarin's former school in Lyubertsy.[119] In 2013, the statue was moved to a permanent location outside the Royal Observatory, Greenwich.[120]

 

In 2012, a statue was unveiled at the site of NASA's original spaceflight headquarters on South Wayside Drive in Houston. The sculpture was completed in 2011 by artist and cosmonaut Alexei Leonov and was a gift to Houston by various Russian organisations. Houston Mayor Annise Parker, NASA Administrator Charles Bolden, and Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak were present for the dedication.[121][122] The Russian Federation presented a bust of Gagarin to several cities in India including one that was unveiled at the Birla Planetarium in Kolkata in February 2012.[123]

 

In April 2018, a bust of Gagarin erected on the street in Belgrade, Serbia, that bears his name was removed, after less than week. A new work was commissioned following the outcry over the disproportionately small size of its head which locals said was an "insult" to Gagarin.[124][125] Belgrade City Manager Goran Vesic stated that neither the city, the Serbian Ministry of Culture, nor the foundation that financed it had prior knowledge of the design.[126]

50th anniversary

50th anniversary stamp of Ukraine

 

The 50th anniversary of Gagarin's journey into space was marked in 2011 by tributes around the world. A film titled First Orbit was shot from the International Space Station, combining sound recordings from the original flight with footage of the route taken by Gagarin.[127] The Russian, American, and Italian crew of Expedition 27 aboard the ISS sent a special video message to wish the people of the world a "Happy Yuri's Night", wearing shirts with an image of Gagarin.[128]

 

The Central Bank of the Russian Federation released gold and silver coins to commemorate the anniversary.[129] The Soyuz TMA-21 spacecraft was named Gagarin with the launch in April 2011 to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the first manned space mission.

PACCAR and Kenworth employee volunteers will collect cash donations and accept new children’s book donations for Page Ahead at the Mariners home game against the Oakland Athletics on Aug. 25. The volunteer employees will be gathered at the Kenworth T880 Mariners truck, which is equipped with a 500-hp PACCAR MX-13 engine. The truck and volunteers will be located in the Parking Plaza next to the Safeco Field Parking Garage on the south side of Edgar Martinez Drive South. For every Mariners run batted in, the PACCAR Foundation makes a financial donation to Page Ahead. By season’s end, the PACCAR Foundation will have donated $675,000 to Page Ahead since the program’s inception, enough to purchase 135,000 new children’s books. PACCAR employees also have purchased and contributed more than 19,000 new children’s books in the past eight years.

Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin [nb 1] (9 March 1934 – 27 March 1968) was a Soviet Air Forces pilot and cosmonaut who became the first human to journey into outer space, achieving a major milestone in the Space Race; his capsule Vostok 1 completed one orbit of Earth on 12 April 1961. Gagarin became an international celebrity and was awarded many medals and titles, including Hero of the Soviet Union, his nation's highest honour.

 

Vostok 1 was Gagarin's only spaceflight but he served as the backup crew to the Soyuz 1 mission, which ended in a fatal crash, killing his friend and fellow cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov. Gagarin later served as the deputy training director of the Cosmonaut Training Centre, which was subsequently named after him. He was elected as a deputy to the Soviet of the Union in 1962 and then to the Soviet of Nationalities, respectively the lower and upper chambers of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union. Gagarin died in 1968 when the MiG-15 training jet he was piloting with his flight instructor Vladimir Seryogin crashed near the town of Kirzhach.

Contents

 

1 Early life and education

2 Soviet Air Force service

3 Soviet space program

3.1 Selection and training

3.2 Vostok 1

4 After the Vostok 1 flight

5 Personal life

6 Death

7 Awards and honours

7.1 Medals and orders of merit

7.2 Tributes

7.3 Statues and monuments

7.4 50th anniversary

8 See also

9 Notes

10 References

10.1 Sources

11 Further reading

12 External links

 

Early life and education

 

Yuri Gagarin was born 9 March 1934 in the village of Klushino,[1] near Gzhatsk (renamed Gagarin in 1968 after his death).[2] His parents worked on a collective farm:[3] Alexey Ivanovich Gagarin as a carpenter and Anna Timofeyevna Gagarina as a dairy farmer.[nb 2][4] Yuri was the third of four children: his siblings were brothers Valentin (1924) and Boris (1936), and sister Zoya (1927).[5][6]

 

Like millions of Soviet Union citizens, the Gagarin family suffered during the Nazi occupation of Russia during World War II. Klushino was occupied in November 1941 during the German advance on Moscow and a German officer took over the Gagarin residence. The family were allowed to build a mud hut approximately 3 by 3 metres (10 by 10 ft) inside on the land behind their house, where they spent twenty-one months until the end of the occupation.[7] His two older siblings were deported by the Germans to Poland for slave labour in 1943 and did not return until after the war in 1945.[5][8] In 1946, the family moved to Gzhatsk, where Gagarin continued his secondary education.[7]

 

In 1950, aged 16, Gagarin began an apprenticeship as a foundryman at the Lyubertsy steel plant near Moscow,[5][8] and enrolled at a local "young workers" school for seventh-grade evening classes.[9] After graduating in 1951 from both the seventh grade and the vocational school with honours in mouldmaking and foundry work,[9] he was selected for further training at the Saratov Industrial Technical School, where he studied tractors.[5][8][10] While in Saratov, Gagarin volunteered at a local flying club for weekend training as a Soviet air cadet, where he trained to fly a biplane, and later a Yak-18.[8][10] He earned extra money as a part-time dock labourer on the Volga River.[7]

Soviet Air Force service

 

In 1955, Gagarin was accepted to the 1st Chkalovsky Higher Air Force Pilots School, a flight school in Orenburg.[11][12] He initially began training on the Yak-18 already familiar to him and later graduated to training on the MiG-15 in February 1956.[11] Gagarin twice struggled to land the two-seater trainer aircraft, and risked dismissal from pilot training. However, the commander of the regiment decided to give him another chance at landing. Gagarin's flight instructor gave him a cushion to sit on, which improved his view from the cockpit, and he landed successfully. Having completed his evaluation in a trainer aircraft,[13] Gagarin began flying solo in 1957.[5]

 

On 5 November 1957, Gagarin was commissioned a lieutenant in the Soviet Air Forces having accumulated 166 hours and 47 minutes of flight time. He graduated from flight school the next day and was posted to the Luostari airbase close to the Norwegian border in Murmansk Oblast for a two-year assignment with the Northern Fleet.[14] On 7 July 1959, he was rated Military Pilot 3rd Class.[15] After expressing interest in space exploration following the launch of Luna 3 on 6 October 1959, his recommendation to the Soviet space program was endorsed and forward by Lieutenant Colonel Babushkin.[14][16] By this point, he had accumulated 265 hours of flight time.[14] Gagarin was promoted to the rank of senior lieutenant on 6 November 1959,[15] three weeks after he was interviewed by a medical commission for qualification to the space program.[14]

Soviet space program

Selection and training

See also: Vostok programme

Vostok I capsule on display at the RKK Energiya museum

 

Gagarin's selection for the Vostok programme was overseen by the Central Flight Medical Commission led by Major General Konstantin Fyodorovich Borodin of the Soviet Army Medical Service. He underwent physical and psychological testing conducted at Central Aviation Scientific-Research Hospital, in Moscow, commanded by Colonel A.S. Usanov, a member of the commission. The commission also included Colonel Yevgeniy Anatoliyevich Karpov, who later commanded the training centre, Colonel Vladimir Ivanovich Yazdovskiy, the head physician for Gagarin's flight, and Major-General Aleksandr Nikolayevich Babiychuk, a physician flag officer on the Soviet Air Force General Staff to the Commander in Chief of the Air Force.[17]

 

From a pool of 154 qualified pilots short-listed by their Air Force units, the military physicians chose 29 cosmonaut candidates, of which 20 were approved by the Credential Committee of the Soviet Government. The first twelve including Gagarin were approved on 7 March 1960 and eight more were added in a series of subsequent orders issued until June.[18] Gagarin began training at the Khodynka Airfield in downtown Moscow on 15 March 1960. The training regiment involved vigorous and repetitive physical exercises which Alexei Leonov, a member of the initial group of twelve, described as akin to training for the Olympics Games.[19] In April 1960, they began parachute training in Saratov Oblast and each completed about 40 to 50 jumps from both low and high altitude, and over land and water.[20]

 

Gagarin was a candidate favoured by his peers. When they were asked to vote anonymously for a candidate besides themselves they would like to be the first to fly, all but three chose Gagarin.[21] One of these candidates, Yevgeny Khrunov, believed that Gagarin was very focused and was demanding of himself and others when necessary.[22] On 30 May 1960, Gagarin was further selected for an accelerated training group, known as the Vanguard Six or Sochi Six,[23][nb 3] from which the first cosmonauts of the Vostok programme would be chosen. The other members of the group were Anatoliy Kartashov, Andriyan Nikolayev, Pavel Popovich, German Titov, and Valentin Varlamov. However, Kartashov and Varlamov were injured and replaced by Khrunov and Grigoriy Nelyubov.[25]

 

As several of the candidates selected for the program including Gagarin did not have higher education degrees, they were enrolled into a correspondence course program at Zhukovsky Air Force Engineering Academy. Gagarin enrolled in the program in September 1960 and did not earn his specialist diploma until early 1968.[26][27] Gagarin was also subjected to experiments that were designed to test physical and psychological endurance including oxygen starvation tests in which the cosmonauts were locked in an isolation chamber and the air slowly pumped out. He also trained for the upcoming flight by experiencing g-forces in a centrifuge.[28][25] Psychological tests included placing the candidates in an anechoic chamber in complete isolation; Gagarin was in the chamber on July 26 – August 5.[29][20] In August 1960, a Soviet Air Force doctor evaluated his personality as follows:

 

Modest; embarrasses when his humor gets a little too racy; high degree of intellectual development evident in Yuriy; fantastic memory; distinguishes himself from his colleagues by his sharp and far-ranging sense of attention to his surroundings; a well-developed imagination; quick reactions; persevering, prepares himself painstakingly for his activities and training exercises, handles celestial mechanics and mathematical formulae with ease as well as excels in higher mathematics; does not feel constrained when he has to defend his point of view if he considers himself right; appears that he understands life better than a lot of his friends.[21]

 

The Vanguard Six were given the title of pilot-cosmonaut in January 1961[25] and entered a two-day examination conducted by a special interdepartmental commission led Lieutenant-General Nikolai Kamanin, tasked with ranking of the candidates based on their mission readiness for the first human Vostok mission. On 17 January 1961, they were tested in a simulator at the M. M. Gromov Flight-Research Institute on a full-size mockup of the Vostok capsule. Gagarin, Nikolayev, Popovich, and Titov all received excellent marks on the first day of testing in which they were required to describe the various phases of the mission followed by questions from commission.[22] On the second day, they were given a written examination following which the special commission ranked Gagarin as the best candidate the first mission. He and the next two highest-ranked cosmonauts, Titov and Nelyubov, were sent to Tyuratam for final preparations.[22] Gagarin and Titov were selected to train in the flight-ready spacecraft on 7 April 1961. Historian Asif Siddiqi writes of the final selection:[30]

 

In the end, at the State Commission meeting on April 8, Kamanin stood up and formally nominated Gagarin as the primary pilot and Titov as his backup. Without much discussion, the commission approved the proposal and moved on to other last-minute logistical issues. It was assumed that in the event Gagarin developed health problems prior to liftoff, Titov would take his place, with Nelyubov acting as his backup.

 

Vostok 1

Main article: Vostok 1

 

Poyekhali!

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Gagarin's voice

Problems playing this file? See media help.

 

On 12 April 1961, 6:07 am UTC, the Vostok 3KA-3 (Vostok 1) spacecraft was launched from Baikonur Cosmodrome. Aboard was Gagarin, the first human to travel into space, using the call sign Kedr (Russian: Кедр, Siberian pine or Cedar).[31] The radio communication between the launch control room and Gagarin included the following dialogue at the moment of rocket launch:

 

Korolev: Preliminary stage ... intermediate... main... LIFT-OFF! We wish you a good flight. Everything's all right.

 

Gagarin: Off we go! Goodbye, until [we meet] soon, dear friends.[32][33]

 

Gagarin's farewell to Korolev using the informal phrase Poyekhali! (Russian: Поехали!)[nb 4] later became a popular expression in the Eastern Bloc that was used to refer to the beginning of the Space Age.[35][36] The five first-stage engines fired until the first separation event, when the four side-boosters fell away, leaving the core engine. The core stage then separated while the rocket was in a suborbital trajectory, and the upper stage carried it to orbit. Once the upper stage finished firing, it separated from the spacecraft, which orbited for 108 minutes before returning to Earth in Kazakhstan.[37] Gagarin became the first to orbit the Earth.[31]

File:1961-04-19 First Pictures-Yuri Gagarin-selection.ogvPlay media

An April 1961 newsreel of Gagarin arriving in Moscow to be greeted by First Secretary Nikita Khrushchev.

 

"The feeling of weightlessness was somewhat unfamiliar compared with Earth conditions. Here, you feel as if you were hanging in a horizontal position in straps. You feel as if you are suspended", Gagarin wrote in his post-flight report.[38] He also wrote in his autobiography released the same year that he sang the tune "The Motherland Hears, The Motherland Knows" (Russian: "Родина слышит, Родина знает") during re-entry.[39] Gagarin was qualified a Military Pilot 1st Class and promoted to the rank of major in a special order given during his flight.[15][39]

 

At about 23,000 feet (7,000 m), Gagarin ejected from the descending capsule as planned and landed using a parachute. There were concerns Gagarin's spaceflight record would not be certified by the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI), the world governing body for setting standards and keeping records in the field, which at the time required that the pilot land with the craft.[40] Gagarin and Soviet officials initially refused to admit that he had not landed with his spacecraft,[41] an omission which became apparent after Titov's subsequent flight on Vostok 2 four months later. Gagarin's spaceflight records were nonetheless certified and again reaffirmed by the FAI, which revised it rules, and acknowledge that the crucial steps of the safe launch, orbit, and return of the pilot had been accomplished. Gagarin continues to be internationally recognised as the first human in space and first to orbit the Earth.[42]

After the Vostok 1 flight

Gagarin in Warsaw, 1961

 

Gagarin's flight was a triumph for the Soviet space program and he became a national hero of the Soviet Union and Eastern Bloc, as well as a worldwide celebrity. Newspapers around the globe published his biography and details of his flight. He was escorted in a long motorcade of high-ranking officials through the streets of Moscow to the Kremlin where, in a lavish ceremony, Nikita Khrushchev awarded him the title Hero of the Soviet Union. Other cities in the Soviet Union also held mass demonstrations, the scale of which were second only to World War II Victory Parades.[43]

Gagarin and Valentina Tereshkova (seated to his right) sign autographs in 1964

 

Gagarin gained a reputation as an adept public figure and was noted for his charismatic smile.[44][45][46] On 15 April 1961, accompanied by official from the Soviet Academy of Sciences, he answered questions at a press conference in Moscow reportedly attended by 1,000 reporters.[47] Gagarin visited the United Kingdom three months after the Vostok 1 mission, going to London and Manchester.[48][44] While in Manchester, despite heavy rain, he refused an umbrella, insisted that the roof of the convertible car he was riding in remain open, and stood so the cheering crowds could see him.[44][49] Gagarin toured widely abroad, accepting the invitation of about 30 countries.[50] In just the first four months, he also went to Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Cuba, Czechoslovakia, Finland, Hungary, and Iceland.[51]

 

In 1962, Gagarin began serving as a deputy to the Soviet of the Union,[52] and was elected to the Central Committee of the Young Communist League. He later returned to Star City, the cosmonaut facility, where he spent several years working on designs for a reusable spacecraft. He became a lieutenant colonel of the Soviet Air Forces on 12 June 1962, and received the rank of colonel on 6 November 1963.[15] On 20 December 1963, Gagarin became Deputy Training Director of the Star City cosmonaut training base.[53] Soviet officials, including cosmonaut overseerer Nikolai Kamanin, tried to keep Gagarin away from any flights, being worried about losing their hero in an accident noting that he was "too dear to mankind to risk his life for the sake of an ordinary space flight".[54] Kamanin was also concerned by Gagarin's drinking and believed the sudden rise to fame had taken its toll on the cosmonaut. While acquaintances say Gagarin had been a "sensible drinker", his touring schedule placed him in social situations in which he was increasingly expected to drink alcohol.[5][10]

Gagarin with U.S. Vice President Hubert Humphrey, French Prime Minister Georges Pompidou and the Gemini 4 astronauts at the 1965 Paris Air Show

 

Two years later, he was re-elected as a deputy of the Soviet Union but this time to the Soviet of Nationalities, the upper chamber of legislature.[52] The following year, he began to re-qualify as a fighter pilot[55] and was backup pilot for his friend Vladimir Komarov on the Soyuz 1 flight after five years without piloting duty. Kamanin had opposed Gagarin's reassignment to cosmonaut training; he had gained weight and his flying skills had deteriorated. Despite this, he remained a strong contender for Soyuz 1 until he was replaced by Komarov in April 1966 and reassigned to Soyuz 3.[56]

 

The Soyuz 1 launch was rushed due to implicit political pressures[57] and despite Gagarin's protests that additional safety precautions were necessary.[58] Gagarin accompanied Komarov to the rocket before launch and relayed instructions to Komarov from ground control following multiple system failures aboard the spacecraft.[59] Despite their best efforts, Soyuz 1 crash landed after its parachutes failed to open, killing Komarov instantly.[60] After the Soyuz 1 crash, Gagarin was permanently banned from training for and participating in further spaceflights.[61] He was also grounded from flying aircraft solo, a demotion he worked hard to lift. He was temporarily relieved of duties to focus on academics with the promise that he would be able to resume flight training.[62] On 17 February 1968, Gagarin successfully defended his aerospace engineering thesis on the subject of spaceplane aerodynamic configuration and graduated cum laude from Zhukovsky Air Force Engineering Academy.[27][63][62]

Personal life

Gagarin and his wife Valentina clapping at a concert in Moscow in 1964.

Gagarin and his wife Valentina at a concert in Moscow in 1964.

 

Gagarin was a keen sportsman and fond of ice hockey as a goal keeper.[64] He was also a basketball fan and coached the Saratov Industrial Technical School team, as well as being a referee.[65]

 

In 1957, while a cadet in flight school, Gagarin met Valentina Goryacheva at the May Day celebrations at the Red Square in Moscow.[66] She was a medical technician who graduated from Orenburg Medical School.[8][10] They were married on 7 November 1957,[8] the same day Gagarin graduated from Orenburg, and they had two daughters.[67][68] Yelena Yurievna Gagarina, born 1959,[68] is an art historian who has worked as the director-general of the Moscow Kremlin Museums since 2001;[69][70] and Galina Yurievna Gagarina, born 1961,[68] is a professor of economics and the department chair at Plekhanov Russian University of Economics in Moscow.[69][71] Following his rise to fame, at a Black Sea resort in September 1961, he was reportedly caught by his wife during a liaison with a nurse who had aided him after a boating incident. He attempted to escape through a window and jumped off a second floor balcony. The resulting injury left a permanent scar above his left eyebrow.[5][10]

Death

Plaque on a brick wall with inscription: Юрий Алексеевич Гагарин, 1934-03-09–1968-03-27

Plaque indicating Gagarin's interment in the Kremlin Wall

 

On 27 March 1968, while on a routine training flight from Chkalovsky Air Base, Gagarin and flight instructor Vladimir Seryogin died when their MiG-15UTI crashed near the town of Kirzhach. The bodies of Gagarin and Seryogin were cremated and their ashes were buried in the walls of the Kremlin.[72] Wrapped in secrecy, the cause of the crash that killed Gagarin is uncertain and became the subject of several theories.[73][74] At least three investigations into the crash were conducted separately by the Air Force, official government commissions, and the KGB.[75][76] According to a biography of Gagarin by Jamie Doran and Piers Bizony, Starman: The Truth Behind the Legend of Yuri Gagarin, the KGB worked "not just alongside the Air Force and the official commission members but against them."[75]

 

The KGB's report declassified in March 2003 dismissed various conspiracy theories and instead indicated the actions of airbase personnel contributed to the crash. The report states that an air-traffic controller provided Gagarin with outdated weather information and that by the time of his flight, conditions had deteriorated significantly. Ground crew also left external fuel tanks attached to the aircraft. Gagarin's planned flight activities needed clear weather and no outboard tanks. The investigation concluded Gagarin's aircraft entered a spin, either due to a bird strike or because of a sudden move to avoid another aircraft. Because of the out-of-date weather report, the crew believed their altitude was higher than it was and could not react properly to bring the MiG-15 out of its spin.[76] Another theory, advanced in 2005 by the original crash investigator, hypothesizes that a cabin air vent was accidentally left open by the crew or the previous pilot, leading to oxygen deprivation and leaving the crew incapable of controlling the aircraft.[73] A similar theory, published in Air & Space magazine, is that the crew detected the open vent and followed procedure by executing a rapid dive to a lower altitude. This dive caused them to lose consciousness and crash.[74]

 

On 12 April 2007, the Kremlin vetoed a new investigation into the death of Gagarin. Government officials said they saw no reason to begin a new investigation.[77] In April 2011, documents from a 1968 commission set up by the Central Committee of the Communist Party to investigate the accident were declassified. The documents revealed that the commission's original conclusion was that Gagarin or Seryogin had manoeuvered sharply, either to avoid a weather balloon or to avoid "entry into the upper limit of the first layer of cloud cover", leading the jet into a "super-critical flight regime and to its stalling in complex meteorological conditions".[78]

A Russian MiG-15UTI, the same type as Gagarin was flying

 

Cosmonaut Alexei Leonov, a member of a state commission established to investigate Gagarin's death, was conducting parachute training sessions that day and heard "two loud booms in the distance". He believes that a Sukhoi Su-15 was flying below its minimum altitude and, "without realizing it because of the terrible weather conditions, he passed within 10 or 20 meters of Yuri and Seregin's plane while breaking the sound barrier". The resulting turbulence would have sent the MiG-15UTI into an uncontrolled spin. Leonov said the first boom he heard was that of the jet breaking the sound barrier and the second was Gagarin's plane crashing.[79] In a June 2013 interview with Russian television network RT, Leonov said a report on the incident confirmed the presence of a second, "unauthorized" Su-15 flying in the area. However, as a condition of being allowed to discuss the declassified report, Leonov was barred from disclosing the name of the Su-15 pilot who was 80 years old and in poor health as of 2013.[80]

Awards and honours

Medals and orders of merit

Jânio Quadros, President of Brazil, decorated Gagarin in 1961.

 

On 14 April 1961, Gagarin was honoured with a 12-mile (19 km) parade attended by millions of people that concluded at the Red Square. After a short speech, he was bestowed the Hero of the Soviet Union,[81][82] Order of Lenin,[81] Merited Master of Sports of the Soviet Union[83] and the first Pilot-Cosmonaut of the USSR.[82] On 15 April, the Soviet Academy of Sciences awarded him with the Konstantin Tsiolkovsky Gold Medal, named after the Russian pioneer of space aeronautics.[84] Gagarin had also been awarded four Soviet commemorative medals over the course of his career.[15]

 

He was honoured as a Hero of Socialist Labor (Czechoslovakia) on 29 April 1961,[85][86] and Hero of Socialist Labor (Bulgaria, including the Order of Georgi Dimitrov) on 24 May.[15][chronology citation needed] On the eighth anniversary of the beginning of Cuban Revolution (26 July), President Osvaldo Dorticos of Cuba presented him with the first Commander of the Order of Playa Girón, a newly created medal.[87]

 

Gagarin was also awarded the 1960 Gold Air Medal and the 1961 De la Vaulx Medal from the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale in Switzerland.[88] He received numerous awards from other nations that year, including the Star of the Republic of Indonesia (2nd Class), the Order of the Cross of Grunwald (1st Degree) in Poland, the Order of the Flag of the Republic of Hungary, the Hero of Labor award from Democratic Republic of Vietnam,[15] the Italian Columbus Day Medal,[89] and a Gold Medal from the British Interplanetary Society.[90][91] President Jânio Quadros of Brazil decorated Gagarin on 2 August 1961 with the Order of Aeronautical Merit, Commander grade.[92] During a tour of Egypt in late January 1962, Gagarin received the Order of the Nile[93] and the golden keys to the gates of Cairo.[50] On 22 October 1963, Gagarin and Valentina Tereshkova were honoured with the Order of Karl Marx from the German Democratic Republic.[94]

Tributes

 

The date of Gagarin's space flight, 12 April, has been commemorated. Since 1962, it has been celebrated in the USSR and most of its former territories as Cosmonautics Day.[95] Since 2000, Yuri's Night, an international celebration, is held annually to commemorate milestones in space exploration.[96] In 2011, it was declared the International Day of Human Space Flight by the United Nations.[97]

Yuri Gagarin statue at the Royal Greenwich Observatory in London

 

A number of buildings and locations have been named for Gagarin. The Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center in Star City, Russia, was named on 30 April 1968.[98] The launch pad at Baikonur Cosmodrome from which Sputnik 1 and Vostok 1 were launched is now known as Gagarin's Start. Gagarin Raion in Sevastopol, Ukraine, was named after him during the period of the Soviet Union. The Russian Air Force Academy was renamed Gagarin Air Force Academy in 1968.[99] A street in Warsaw, Poland, is called Yuri Gagarin Street.[100] The town of Gagarin, Armenia was renamed in his honour in 1961.[101]

 

Gagarin has been honoured on the Moon by astronauts and astronomers. During the American space program's Apollo 11 mission in 1969, astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin left a memorial satchel containing medals commemorating Gagarin and fellow cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov on the Moon's surface.[102][103] In 1971, Apollo 15 astronauts David Scott and James Irwin left the small Fallen Astronaut sculpture at their landing site as a memorial to the American astronauts and Soviet cosmonauts who died in the Space Race; the names on its plaque included Yuri Gagarin and 14 others.[104][105] In 1970, a 262 km (163 mi)-wide crater on the far side after him.[106] Gagarin was inducted as a member of the 1976 inaugural class of the International Space Hall of Fame in New Mexico.[107]

 

Gagarin is memorialised in music; a cycle of Soviet patriotic songs titled The Constellation Gagarin (Russian: Созвездье Гагарина, tr. Sozvezdie Gagarina) was written by Aleksandra Pakhmutova and Nikolai Dobronravov in 1970–1971.[108] The most famous of these songs refers to Gagarin's poyekhali!: in the lyrics, "He said 'let's go!' He waved his hand".[35][108] He was the inspiration for the pieces "Hey Gagarin" by Jean-Michel Jarre on Métamorphoses, "Gagarin" by Public Service Broadcasting, and "Gagarin, I loved you" by Undervud.[109]

Russian ten-ruble commemorating Gagarin in 2001

 

Vessels have been named for Gagarin; Soviet tracking ship Kosmonavt Yuri Gagarin was built in 1971[110] and the Armenian airline Armavia named their first Sukhoi Superjet 100 in his honour in 2011.[111]

 

Two commemorative coins were issued in the Soviet Union to honour the 20th and 30th anniversaries of his flight: a one-ruble coin in copper-nickel (1981) and a three-ruble coin in silver (1991). In 2001, to commemorate the 40th anniversary of Gagarin's flight, a series of four coins bearing his likeness was issued in Russia; it consisted of a two-ruble coin in copper-nickel, a three-ruble coin in silver, a ten-ruble coin in brass-copper and nickel, and a 100-ruble coin in silver.[112] In 2011, Russia issued a 1,000-ruble coin in gold and a three-ruble coin in silver to mark the 50th anniversary of his flight.[113]

 

In 2008, the Kontinental Hockey League named their championship trophy the Gagarin Cup.[114] In a 2010 Space Foundation survey, Gagarin was ranked as the sixth-most-popular space hero, tied with Star Trek's fictional James T. Kirk.[115] A Russian docudrama titled Gagarin: First in Space was released in 2013. Previous attempts at portraying Gagarin were disallowed; his family took legal action over his portrayal in a fictional drama and vetoed a musical.[116]

Statues and monuments

 

There are statues of Gagarin and monuments to him located in Gagarin (Smolensk Oblast), Orenburg, Cheboksary, Irkutsk, Izhevsk, Komsomolsk-on-Amur, and Yoshkar-Ola in Russia, as well as in Nicosia, Cyprus, Druzhkivka, Ukraine, Karaganda, Kazakhstan, and Tiraspol, Moldova. On 4 June 1980, Monument to Yuri Gagarin in Gagarin Square, Leninsky Avenue, Moscow, was opened.[117] The monument is mounted to a 38 m (125 ft) tall pedestal and is constructed of titanium. Beside the column is a replica of the descent module used during his spaceflight.[118]

Bust of Gagarin at Birla Planetarium in Kolkata, India

 

In 2011, a statue of Gagarin was unveiled at Admiralty Arch in The Mall in London, opposite the permanent sculpture of James Cook. It is a copy of the statue outside Gagarin's former school in Lyubertsy.[119] In 2013, the statue was moved to a permanent location outside the Royal Observatory, Greenwich.[120]

 

In 2012, a statue was unveiled at the site of NASA's original spaceflight headquarters on South Wayside Drive in Houston. The sculpture was completed in 2011 by artist and cosmonaut Alexei Leonov and was a gift to Houston by various Russian organisations. Houston Mayor Annise Parker, NASA Administrator Charles Bolden, and Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak were present for the dedication.[121][122] The Russian Federation presented a bust of Gagarin to several cities in India including one that was unveiled at the Birla Planetarium in Kolkata in February 2012.[123]

 

In April 2018, a bust of Gagarin erected on the street in Belgrade, Serbia, that bears his name was removed, after less than week. A new work was commissioned following the outcry over the disproportionately small size of its head which locals said was an "insult" to Gagarin.[124][125] Belgrade City Manager Goran Vesic stated that neither the city, the Serbian Ministry of Culture, nor the foundation that financed it had prior knowledge of the design.[126]

50th anniversary

50th anniversary stamp of Ukraine

 

The 50th anniversary of Gagarin's journey into space was marked in 2011 by tributes around the world. A film titled First Orbit was shot from the International Space Station, combining sound recordings from the original flight with footage of the route taken by Gagarin.[127] The Russian, American, and Italian crew of Expedition 27 aboard the ISS sent a special video message to wish the people of the world a "Happy Yuri's Night", wearing shirts with an image of Gagarin.[128]

 

The Central Bank of the Russian Federation released gold and silver coins to commemorate the anniversary.[129] The Soyuz TMA-21 spacecraft was named Gagarin with the launch in April 2011 to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the first manned space mission.

Farmers have made the trek to the Tool Baye Seed Cooperative processing unit in Kaolack to stock up on new seeds sold for 100 fcfa the kilo instead of the 300 or 500 fcfa price charged at local markets. Photo: Daniella Van Leggelo-Padilla / World Bank

 

Photo ID: 20140813-IMG_5194 Kaolack

 

Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin [nb 1] (9 March 1934 – 27 March 1968) was a Soviet Air Forces pilot and cosmonaut who became the first human to journey into outer space, achieving a major milestone in the Space Race; his capsule Vostok 1 completed one orbit of Earth on 12 April 1961. Gagarin became an international celebrity and was awarded many medals and titles, including Hero of the Soviet Union, his nation's highest honour.

 

Vostok 1 was Gagarin's only spaceflight but he served as the backup crew to the Soyuz 1 mission, which ended in a fatal crash, killing his friend and fellow cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov. Gagarin later served as the deputy training director of the Cosmonaut Training Centre, which was subsequently named after him. He was elected as a deputy to the Soviet of the Union in 1962 and then to the Soviet of Nationalities, respectively the lower and upper chambers of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union. Gagarin died in 1968 when the MiG-15 training jet he was piloting with his flight instructor Vladimir Seryogin crashed near the town of Kirzhach.

Contents

 

1 Early life and education

2 Soviet Air Force service

3 Soviet space program

3.1 Selection and training

3.2 Vostok 1

4 After the Vostok 1 flight

5 Personal life

6 Death

7 Awards and honours

7.1 Medals and orders of merit

7.2 Tributes

7.3 Statues and monuments

7.4 50th anniversary

8 See also

9 Notes

10 References

10.1 Sources

11 Further reading

12 External links

 

Early life and education

 

Yuri Gagarin was born 9 March 1934 in the village of Klushino,[1] near Gzhatsk (renamed Gagarin in 1968 after his death).[2] His parents worked on a collective farm:[3] Alexey Ivanovich Gagarin as a carpenter and Anna Timofeyevna Gagarina as a dairy farmer.[nb 2][4] Yuri was the third of four children: his siblings were brothers Valentin (1924) and Boris (1936), and sister Zoya (1927).[5][6]

 

Like millions of Soviet Union citizens, the Gagarin family suffered during the Nazi occupation of Russia during World War II. Klushino was occupied in November 1941 during the German advance on Moscow and a German officer took over the Gagarin residence. The family were allowed to build a mud hut approximately 3 by 3 metres (10 by 10 ft) inside on the land behind their house, where they spent twenty-one months until the end of the occupation.[7] His two older siblings were deported by the Germans to Poland for slave labour in 1943 and did not return until after the war in 1945.[5][8] In 1946, the family moved to Gzhatsk, where Gagarin continued his secondary education.[7]

 

In 1950, aged 16, Gagarin began an apprenticeship as a foundryman at the Lyubertsy steel plant near Moscow,[5][8] and enrolled at a local "young workers" school for seventh-grade evening classes.[9] After graduating in 1951 from both the seventh grade and the vocational school with honours in mouldmaking and foundry work,[9] he was selected for further training at the Saratov Industrial Technical School, where he studied tractors.[5][8][10] While in Saratov, Gagarin volunteered at a local flying club for weekend training as a Soviet air cadet, where he trained to fly a biplane, and later a Yak-18.[8][10] He earned extra money as a part-time dock labourer on the Volga River.[7]

Soviet Air Force service

 

In 1955, Gagarin was accepted to the 1st Chkalovsky Higher Air Force Pilots School, a flight school in Orenburg.[11][12] He initially began training on the Yak-18 already familiar to him and later graduated to training on the MiG-15 in February 1956.[11] Gagarin twice struggled to land the two-seater trainer aircraft, and risked dismissal from pilot training. However, the commander of the regiment decided to give him another chance at landing. Gagarin's flight instructor gave him a cushion to sit on, which improved his view from the cockpit, and he landed successfully. Having completed his evaluation in a trainer aircraft,[13] Gagarin began flying solo in 1957.[5]

 

On 5 November 1957, Gagarin was commissioned a lieutenant in the Soviet Air Forces having accumulated 166 hours and 47 minutes of flight time. He graduated from flight school the next day and was posted to the Luostari airbase close to the Norwegian border in Murmansk Oblast for a two-year assignment with the Northern Fleet.[14] On 7 July 1959, he was rated Military Pilot 3rd Class.[15] After expressing interest in space exploration following the launch of Luna 3 on 6 October 1959, his recommendation to the Soviet space program was endorsed and forward by Lieutenant Colonel Babushkin.[14][16] By this point, he had accumulated 265 hours of flight time.[14] Gagarin was promoted to the rank of senior lieutenant on 6 November 1959,[15] three weeks after he was interviewed by a medical commission for qualification to the space program.[14]

Soviet space program

Selection and training

See also: Vostok programme

Vostok I capsule on display at the RKK Energiya museum

 

Gagarin's selection for the Vostok programme was overseen by the Central Flight Medical Commission led by Major General Konstantin Fyodorovich Borodin of the Soviet Army Medical Service. He underwent physical and psychological testing conducted at Central Aviation Scientific-Research Hospital, in Moscow, commanded by Colonel A.S. Usanov, a member of the commission. The commission also included Colonel Yevgeniy Anatoliyevich Karpov, who later commanded the training centre, Colonel Vladimir Ivanovich Yazdovskiy, the head physician for Gagarin's flight, and Major-General Aleksandr Nikolayevich Babiychuk, a physician flag officer on the Soviet Air Force General Staff to the Commander in Chief of the Air Force.[17]

 

From a pool of 154 qualified pilots short-listed by their Air Force units, the military physicians chose 29 cosmonaut candidates, of which 20 were approved by the Credential Committee of the Soviet Government. The first twelve including Gagarin were approved on 7 March 1960 and eight more were added in a series of subsequent orders issued until June.[18] Gagarin began training at the Khodynka Airfield in downtown Moscow on 15 March 1960. The training regiment involved vigorous and repetitive physical exercises which Alexei Leonov, a member of the initial group of twelve, described as akin to training for the Olympics Games.[19] In April 1960, they began parachute training in Saratov Oblast and each completed about 40 to 50 jumps from both low and high altitude, and over land and water.[20]

 

Gagarin was a candidate favoured by his peers. When they were asked to vote anonymously for a candidate besides themselves they would like to be the first to fly, all but three chose Gagarin.[21] One of these candidates, Yevgeny Khrunov, believed that Gagarin was very focused and was demanding of himself and others when necessary.[22] On 30 May 1960, Gagarin was further selected for an accelerated training group, known as the Vanguard Six or Sochi Six,[23][nb 3] from which the first cosmonauts of the Vostok programme would be chosen. The other members of the group were Anatoliy Kartashov, Andriyan Nikolayev, Pavel Popovich, German Titov, and Valentin Varlamov. However, Kartashov and Varlamov were injured and replaced by Khrunov and Grigoriy Nelyubov.[25]

 

As several of the candidates selected for the program including Gagarin did not have higher education degrees, they were enrolled into a correspondence course program at Zhukovsky Air Force Engineering Academy. Gagarin enrolled in the program in September 1960 and did not earn his specialist diploma until early 1968.[26][27] Gagarin was also subjected to experiments that were designed to test physical and psychological endurance including oxygen starvation tests in which the cosmonauts were locked in an isolation chamber and the air slowly pumped out. He also trained for the upcoming flight by experiencing g-forces in a centrifuge.[28][25] Psychological tests included placing the candidates in an anechoic chamber in complete isolation; Gagarin was in the chamber on July 26 – August 5.[29][20] In August 1960, a Soviet Air Force doctor evaluated his personality as follows:

 

Modest; embarrasses when his humor gets a little too racy; high degree of intellectual development evident in Yuriy; fantastic memory; distinguishes himself from his colleagues by his sharp and far-ranging sense of attention to his surroundings; a well-developed imagination; quick reactions; persevering, prepares himself painstakingly for his activities and training exercises, handles celestial mechanics and mathematical formulae with ease as well as excels in higher mathematics; does not feel constrained when he has to defend his point of view if he considers himself right; appears that he understands life better than a lot of his friends.[21]

 

The Vanguard Six were given the title of pilot-cosmonaut in January 1961[25] and entered a two-day examination conducted by a special interdepartmental commission led Lieutenant-General Nikolai Kamanin, tasked with ranking of the candidates based on their mission readiness for the first human Vostok mission. On 17 January 1961, they were tested in a simulator at the M. M. Gromov Flight-Research Institute on a full-size mockup of the Vostok capsule. Gagarin, Nikolayev, Popovich, and Titov all received excellent marks on the first day of testing in which they were required to describe the various phases of the mission followed by questions from commission.[22] On the second day, they were given a written examination following which the special commission ranked Gagarin as the best candidate the first mission. He and the next two highest-ranked cosmonauts, Titov and Nelyubov, were sent to Tyuratam for final preparations.[22] Gagarin and Titov were selected to train in the flight-ready spacecraft on 7 April 1961. Historian Asif Siddiqi writes of the final selection:[30]

 

In the end, at the State Commission meeting on April 8, Kamanin stood up and formally nominated Gagarin as the primary pilot and Titov as his backup. Without much discussion, the commission approved the proposal and moved on to other last-minute logistical issues. It was assumed that in the event Gagarin developed health problems prior to liftoff, Titov would take his place, with Nelyubov acting as his backup.

 

Vostok 1

Main article: Vostok 1

 

Poyekhali!

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Gagarin's voice

Problems playing this file? See media help.

 

On 12 April 1961, 6:07 am UTC, the Vostok 3KA-3 (Vostok 1) spacecraft was launched from Baikonur Cosmodrome. Aboard was Gagarin, the first human to travel into space, using the call sign Kedr (Russian: Кедр, Siberian pine or Cedar).[31] The radio communication between the launch control room and Gagarin included the following dialogue at the moment of rocket launch:

 

Korolev: Preliminary stage ... intermediate... main... LIFT-OFF! We wish you a good flight. Everything's all right.

 

Gagarin: Off we go! Goodbye, until [we meet] soon, dear friends.[32][33]

 

Gagarin's farewell to Korolev using the informal phrase Poyekhali! (Russian: Поехали!)[nb 4] later became a popular expression in the Eastern Bloc that was used to refer to the beginning of the Space Age.[35][36] The five first-stage engines fired until the first separation event, when the four side-boosters fell away, leaving the core engine. The core stage then separated while the rocket was in a suborbital trajectory, and the upper stage carried it to orbit. Once the upper stage finished firing, it separated from the spacecraft, which orbited for 108 minutes before returning to Earth in Kazakhstan.[37] Gagarin became the first to orbit the Earth.[31]

File:1961-04-19 First Pictures-Yuri Gagarin-selection.ogvPlay media

An April 1961 newsreel of Gagarin arriving in Moscow to be greeted by First Secretary Nikita Khrushchev.

 

"The feeling of weightlessness was somewhat unfamiliar compared with Earth conditions. Here, you feel as if you were hanging in a horizontal position in straps. You feel as if you are suspended", Gagarin wrote in his post-flight report.[38] He also wrote in his autobiography released the same year that he sang the tune "The Motherland Hears, The Motherland Knows" (Russian: "Родина слышит, Родина знает") during re-entry.[39] Gagarin was qualified a Military Pilot 1st Class and promoted to the rank of major in a special order given during his flight.[15][39]

 

At about 23,000 feet (7,000 m), Gagarin ejected from the descending capsule as planned and landed using a parachute. There were concerns Gagarin's spaceflight record would not be certified by the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI), the world governing body for setting standards and keeping records in the field, which at the time required that the pilot land with the craft.[40] Gagarin and Soviet officials initially refused to admit that he had not landed with his spacecraft,[41] an omission which became apparent after Titov's subsequent flight on Vostok 2 four months later. Gagarin's spaceflight records were nonetheless certified and again reaffirmed by the FAI, which revised it rules, and acknowledge that the crucial steps of the safe launch, orbit, and return of the pilot had been accomplished. Gagarin continues to be internationally recognised as the first human in space and first to orbit the Earth.[42]

After the Vostok 1 flight

Gagarin in Warsaw, 1961

 

Gagarin's flight was a triumph for the Soviet space program and he became a national hero of the Soviet Union and Eastern Bloc, as well as a worldwide celebrity. Newspapers around the globe published his biography and details of his flight. He was escorted in a long motorcade of high-ranking officials through the streets of Moscow to the Kremlin where, in a lavish ceremony, Nikita Khrushchev awarded him the title Hero of the Soviet Union. Other cities in the Soviet Union also held mass demonstrations, the scale of which were second only to World War II Victory Parades.[43]

Gagarin and Valentina Tereshkova (seated to his right) sign autographs in 1964

 

Gagarin gained a reputation as an adept public figure and was noted for his charismatic smile.[44][45][46] On 15 April 1961, accompanied by official from the Soviet Academy of Sciences, he answered questions at a press conference in Moscow reportedly attended by 1,000 reporters.[47] Gagarin visited the United Kingdom three months after the Vostok 1 mission, going to London and Manchester.[48][44] While in Manchester, despite heavy rain, he refused an umbrella, insisted that the roof of the convertible car he was riding in remain open, and stood so the cheering crowds could see him.[44][49] Gagarin toured widely abroad, accepting the invitation of about 30 countries.[50] In just the first four months, he also went to Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Cuba, Czechoslovakia, Finland, Hungary, and Iceland.[51]

 

In 1962, Gagarin began serving as a deputy to the Soviet of the Union,[52] and was elected to the Central Committee of the Young Communist League. He later returned to Star City, the cosmonaut facility, where he spent several years working on designs for a reusable spacecraft. He became a lieutenant colonel of the Soviet Air Forces on 12 June 1962, and received the rank of colonel on 6 November 1963.[15] On 20 December 1963, Gagarin became Deputy Training Director of the Star City cosmonaut training base.[53] Soviet officials, including cosmonaut overseerer Nikolai Kamanin, tried to keep Gagarin away from any flights, being worried about losing their hero in an accident noting that he was "too dear to mankind to risk his life for the sake of an ordinary space flight".[54] Kamanin was also concerned by Gagarin's drinking and believed the sudden rise to fame had taken its toll on the cosmonaut. While acquaintances say Gagarin had been a "sensible drinker", his touring schedule placed him in social situations in which he was increasingly expected to drink alcohol.[5][10]

Gagarin with U.S. Vice President Hubert Humphrey, French Prime Minister Georges Pompidou and the Gemini 4 astronauts at the 1965 Paris Air Show

 

Two years later, he was re-elected as a deputy of the Soviet Union but this time to the Soviet of Nationalities, the upper chamber of legislature.[52] The following year, he began to re-qualify as a fighter pilot[55] and was backup pilot for his friend Vladimir Komarov on the Soyuz 1 flight after five years without piloting duty. Kamanin had opposed Gagarin's reassignment to cosmonaut training; he had gained weight and his flying skills had deteriorated. Despite this, he remained a strong contender for Soyuz 1 until he was replaced by Komarov in April 1966 and reassigned to Soyuz 3.[56]

 

The Soyuz 1 launch was rushed due to implicit political pressures[57] and despite Gagarin's protests that additional safety precautions were necessary.[58] Gagarin accompanied Komarov to the rocket before launch and relayed instructions to Komarov from ground control following multiple system failures aboard the spacecraft.[59] Despite their best efforts, Soyuz 1 crash landed after its parachutes failed to open, killing Komarov instantly.[60] After the Soyuz 1 crash, Gagarin was permanently banned from training for and participating in further spaceflights.[61] He was also grounded from flying aircraft solo, a demotion he worked hard to lift. He was temporarily relieved of duties to focus on academics with the promise that he would be able to resume flight training.[62] On 17 February 1968, Gagarin successfully defended his aerospace engineering thesis on the subject of spaceplane aerodynamic configuration and graduated cum laude from Zhukovsky Air Force Engineering Academy.[27][63][62]

Personal life

Gagarin and his wife Valentina clapping at a concert in Moscow in 1964.

Gagarin and his wife Valentina at a concert in Moscow in 1964.

 

Gagarin was a keen sportsman and fond of ice hockey as a goal keeper.[64] He was also a basketball fan and coached the Saratov Industrial Technical School team, as well as being a referee.[65]

 

In 1957, while a cadet in flight school, Gagarin met Valentina Goryacheva at the May Day celebrations at the Red Square in Moscow.[66] She was a medical technician who graduated from Orenburg Medical School.[8][10] They were married on 7 November 1957,[8] the same day Gagarin graduated from Orenburg, and they had two daughters.[67][68] Yelena Yurievna Gagarina, born 1959,[68] is an art historian who has worked as the director-general of the Moscow Kremlin Museums since 2001;[69][70] and Galina Yurievna Gagarina, born 1961,[68] is a professor of economics and the department chair at Plekhanov Russian University of Economics in Moscow.[69][71] Following his rise to fame, at a Black Sea resort in September 1961, he was reportedly caught by his wife during a liaison with a nurse who had aided him after a boating incident. He attempted to escape through a window and jumped off a second floor balcony. The resulting injury left a permanent scar above his left eyebrow.[5][10]

Death

Plaque on a brick wall with inscription: Юрий Алексеевич Гагарин, 1934-03-09–1968-03-27

Plaque indicating Gagarin's interment in the Kremlin Wall

 

On 27 March 1968, while on a routine training flight from Chkalovsky Air Base, Gagarin and flight instructor Vladimir Seryogin died when their MiG-15UTI crashed near the town of Kirzhach. The bodies of Gagarin and Seryogin were cremated and their ashes were buried in the walls of the Kremlin.[72] Wrapped in secrecy, the cause of the crash that killed Gagarin is uncertain and became the subject of several theories.[73][74] At least three investigations into the crash were conducted separately by the Air Force, official government commissions, and the KGB.[75][76] According to a biography of Gagarin by Jamie Doran and Piers Bizony, Starman: The Truth Behind the Legend of Yuri Gagarin, the KGB worked "not just alongside the Air Force and the official commission members but against them."[75]

 

The KGB's report declassified in March 2003 dismissed various conspiracy theories and instead indicated the actions of airbase personnel contributed to the crash. The report states that an air-traffic controller provided Gagarin with outdated weather information and that by the time of his flight, conditions had deteriorated significantly. Ground crew also left external fuel tanks attached to the aircraft. Gagarin's planned flight activities needed clear weather and no outboard tanks. The investigation concluded Gagarin's aircraft entered a spin, either due to a bird strike or because of a sudden move to avoid another aircraft. Because of the out-of-date weather report, the crew believed their altitude was higher than it was and could not react properly to bring the MiG-15 out of its spin.[76] Another theory, advanced in 2005 by the original crash investigator, hypothesizes that a cabin air vent was accidentally left open by the crew or the previous pilot, leading to oxygen deprivation and leaving the crew incapable of controlling the aircraft.[73] A similar theory, published in Air & Space magazine, is that the crew detected the open vent and followed procedure by executing a rapid dive to a lower altitude. This dive caused them to lose consciousness and crash.[74]

 

On 12 April 2007, the Kremlin vetoed a new investigation into the death of Gagarin. Government officials said they saw no reason to begin a new investigation.[77] In April 2011, documents from a 1968 commission set up by the Central Committee of the Communist Party to investigate the accident were declassified. The documents revealed that the commission's original conclusion was that Gagarin or Seryogin had manoeuvered sharply, either to avoid a weather balloon or to avoid "entry into the upper limit of the first layer of cloud cover", leading the jet into a "super-critical flight regime and to its stalling in complex meteorological conditions".[78]

A Russian MiG-15UTI, the same type as Gagarin was flying

 

Cosmonaut Alexei Leonov, a member of a state commission established to investigate Gagarin's death, was conducting parachute training sessions that day and heard "two loud booms in the distance". He believes that a Sukhoi Su-15 was flying below its minimum altitude and, "without realizing it because of the terrible weather conditions, he passed within 10 or 20 meters of Yuri and Seregin's plane while breaking the sound barrier". The resulting turbulence would have sent the MiG-15UTI into an uncontrolled spin. Leonov said the first boom he heard was that of the jet breaking the sound barrier and the second was Gagarin's plane crashing.[79] In a June 2013 interview with Russian television network RT, Leonov said a report on the incident confirmed the presence of a second, "unauthorized" Su-15 flying in the area. However, as a condition of being allowed to discuss the declassified report, Leonov was barred from disclosing the name of the Su-15 pilot who was 80 years old and in poor health as of 2013.[80]

Awards and honours

Medals and orders of merit

Jânio Quadros, President of Brazil, decorated Gagarin in 1961.

 

On 14 April 1961, Gagarin was honoured with a 12-mile (19 km) parade attended by millions of people that concluded at the Red Square. After a short speech, he was bestowed the Hero of the Soviet Union,[81][82] Order of Lenin,[81] Merited Master of Sports of the Soviet Union[83] and the first Pilot-Cosmonaut of the USSR.[82] On 15 April, the Soviet Academy of Sciences awarded him with the Konstantin Tsiolkovsky Gold Medal, named after the Russian pioneer of space aeronautics.[84] Gagarin had also been awarded four Soviet commemorative medals over the course of his career.[15]

 

He was honoured as a Hero of Socialist Labor (Czechoslovakia) on 29 April 1961,[85][86] and Hero of Socialist Labor (Bulgaria, including the Order of Georgi Dimitrov) on 24 May.[15][chronology citation needed] On the eighth anniversary of the beginning of Cuban Revolution (26 July), President Osvaldo Dorticos of Cuba presented him with the first Commander of the Order of Playa Girón, a newly created medal.[87]

 

Gagarin was also awarded the 1960 Gold Air Medal and the 1961 De la Vaulx Medal from the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale in Switzerland.[88] He received numerous awards from other nations that year, including the Star of the Republic of Indonesia (2nd Class), the Order of the Cross of Grunwald (1st Degree) in Poland, the Order of the Flag of the Republic of Hungary, the Hero of Labor award from Democratic Republic of Vietnam,[15] the Italian Columbus Day Medal,[89] and a Gold Medal from the British Interplanetary Society.[90][91] President Jânio Quadros of Brazil decorated Gagarin on 2 August 1961 with the Order of Aeronautical Merit, Commander grade.[92] During a tour of Egypt in late January 1962, Gagarin received the Order of the Nile[93] and the golden keys to the gates of Cairo.[50] On 22 October 1963, Gagarin and Valentina Tereshkova were honoured with the Order of Karl Marx from the German Democratic Republic.[94]

Tributes

 

The date of Gagarin's space flight, 12 April, has been commemorated. Since 1962, it has been celebrated in the USSR and most of its former territories as Cosmonautics Day.[95] Since 2000, Yuri's Night, an international celebration, is held annually to commemorate milestones in space exploration.[96] In 2011, it was declared the International Day of Human Space Flight by the United Nations.[97]

Yuri Gagarin statue at the Royal Greenwich Observatory in London

 

A number of buildings and locations have been named for Gagarin. The Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center in Star City, Russia, was named on 30 April 1968.[98] The launch pad at Baikonur Cosmodrome from which Sputnik 1 and Vostok 1 were launched is now known as Gagarin's Start. Gagarin Raion in Sevastopol, Ukraine, was named after him during the period of the Soviet Union. The Russian Air Force Academy was renamed Gagarin Air Force Academy in 1968.[99] A street in Warsaw, Poland, is called Yuri Gagarin Street.[100] The town of Gagarin, Armenia was renamed in his honour in 1961.[101]

 

Gagarin has been honoured on the Moon by astronauts and astronomers. During the American space program's Apollo 11 mission in 1969, astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin left a memorial satchel containing medals commemorating Gagarin and fellow cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov on the Moon's surface.[102][103] In 1971, Apollo 15 astronauts David Scott and James Irwin left the small Fallen Astronaut sculpture at their landing site as a memorial to the American astronauts and Soviet cosmonauts who died in the Space Race; the names on its plaque included Yuri Gagarin and 14 others.[104][105] In 1970, a 262 km (163 mi)-wide crater on the far side after him.[106] Gagarin was inducted as a member of the 1976 inaugural class of the International Space Hall of Fame in New Mexico.[107]

 

Gagarin is memorialised in music; a cycle of Soviet patriotic songs titled The Constellation Gagarin (Russian: Созвездье Гагарина, tr. Sozvezdie Gagarina) was written by Aleksandra Pakhmutova and Nikolai Dobronravov in 1970–1971.[108] The most famous of these songs refers to Gagarin's poyekhali!: in the lyrics, "He said 'let's go!' He waved his hand".[35][108] He was the inspiration for the pieces "Hey Gagarin" by Jean-Michel Jarre on Métamorphoses, "Gagarin" by Public Service Broadcasting, and "Gagarin, I loved you" by Undervud.[109]

Russian ten-ruble commemorating Gagarin in 2001

 

Vessels have been named for Gagarin; Soviet tracking ship Kosmonavt Yuri Gagarin was built in 1971[110] and the Armenian airline Armavia named their first Sukhoi Superjet 100 in his honour in 2011.[111]

 

Two commemorative coins were issued in the Soviet Union to honour the 20th and 30th anniversaries of his flight: a one-ruble coin in copper-nickel (1981) and a three-ruble coin in silver (1991). In 2001, to commemorate the 40th anniversary of Gagarin's flight, a series of four coins bearing his likeness was issued in Russia; it consisted of a two-ruble coin in copper-nickel, a three-ruble coin in silver, a ten-ruble coin in brass-copper and nickel, and a 100-ruble coin in silver.[112] In 2011, Russia issued a 1,000-ruble coin in gold and a three-ruble coin in silver to mark the 50th anniversary of his flight.[113]

 

In 2008, the Kontinental Hockey League named their championship trophy the Gagarin Cup.[114] In a 2010 Space Foundation survey, Gagarin was ranked as the sixth-most-popular space hero, tied with Star Trek's fictional James T. Kirk.[115] A Russian docudrama titled Gagarin: First in Space was released in 2013. Previous attempts at portraying Gagarin were disallowed; his family took legal action over his portrayal in a fictional drama and vetoed a musical.[116]

Statues and monuments

 

There are statues of Gagarin and monuments to him located in Gagarin (Smolensk Oblast), Orenburg, Cheboksary, Irkutsk, Izhevsk, Komsomolsk-on-Amur, and Yoshkar-Ola in Russia, as well as in Nicosia, Cyprus, Druzhkivka, Ukraine, Karaganda, Kazakhstan, and Tiraspol, Moldova. On 4 June 1980, Monument to Yuri Gagarin in Gagarin Square, Leninsky Avenue, Moscow, was opened.[117] The monument is mounted to a 38 m (125 ft) tall pedestal and is constructed of titanium. Beside the column is a replica of the descent module used during his spaceflight.[118]

Bust of Gagarin at Birla Planetarium in Kolkata, India

 

In 2011, a statue of Gagarin was unveiled at Admiralty Arch in The Mall in London, opposite the permanent sculpture of James Cook. It is a copy of the statue outside Gagarin's former school in Lyubertsy.[119] In 2013, the statue was moved to a permanent location outside the Royal Observatory, Greenwich.[120]

 

In 2012, a statue was unveiled at the site of NASA's original spaceflight headquarters on South Wayside Drive in Houston. The sculpture was completed in 2011 by artist and cosmonaut Alexei Leonov and was a gift to Houston by various Russian organisations. Houston Mayor Annise Parker, NASA Administrator Charles Bolden, and Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak were present for the dedication.[121][122] The Russian Federation presented a bust of Gagarin to several cities in India including one that was unveiled at the Birla Planetarium in Kolkata in February 2012.[123]

 

In April 2018, a bust of Gagarin erected on the street in Belgrade, Serbia, that bears his name was removed, after less than week. A new work was commissioned following the outcry over the disproportionately small size of its head which locals said was an "insult" to Gagarin.[124][125] Belgrade City Manager Goran Vesic stated that neither the city, the Serbian Ministry of Culture, nor the foundation that financed it had prior knowledge of the design.[126]

50th anniversary

50th anniversary stamp of Ukraine

 

The 50th anniversary of Gagarin's journey into space was marked in 2011 by tributes around the world. A film titled First Orbit was shot from the International Space Station, combining sound recordings from the original flight with footage of the route taken by Gagarin.[127] The Russian, American, and Italian crew of Expedition 27 aboard the ISS sent a special video message to wish the people of the world a "Happy Yuri's Night", wearing shirts with an image of Gagarin.[128]

 

The Central Bank of the Russian Federation released gold and silver coins to commemorate the anniversary.[129] The Soyuz TMA-21 spacecraft was named Gagarin with the launch in April 2011 to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the first manned space mission.

Bridge girders for the new South 216th Street Bridge and new northbound I-5 flyover ramp in SeaTac, WA are ready and waiting for pick up and delivery in June 2023. These concrete girders are manufactured in Tacoma, WA.

 

The girders range from 65 feet to nearly 200 feet long. The heaviest girder weighs 252,100 pounds or 126 tons.

 

The new South 216th Street bridge will require 16 girders, only only six will be set in summer 2023 and the remaining ten in 2024.

 

There are 24 girders that will be set in June 2023 for the new northbound I-5 flyover ramp.

 

The new bridge and flyover ramp are just two improvements that are part of the Puget Sound Gateway Program's SR 509 Completion Project.

   

Third Thursday Wine Walk in Downtown Baker City Oregon

 

Enjoying beautiful evening for Third Thursday in historic downtown Baker City, Oregon.

 

The monthly Third Thursday Wine Walk is one of numerous events hosted by the Baker City Main Street Program, Baker City Downtown giving customers an opportunity to visit and explore downtown after hours.

 

Visitors to downtown will find numerous art galleries throughout Baker City’s historic downtown including the Crossroads Carnegie Art center in the restored Carnegie Library building as well as multiple restaurants and a variety of gourmet and artisan food and spirits.

 

For more information about Third Thursday Wine Walk or other downtown Baker City events visit the Baker City Main Street Program's website at www.bakercitydowntown.com

 

For more information about other community events in Baker County visit the Baker County Tourism website at www.travelbakercounty.com

  

Located at the end of a sleepy little cul-de-sac in the leafy north east Melburnian suburb of Fairy Hills is a beautiful pebbledash Arts and Crafts style bungalow. Quiet and unassuming amid its well kept gardens, this bungalow is quite significant historically as it is the creation and home of nationally renowned husband and wife artists Christian and Napier Waller, and is known as the Waller House. Together they designed the house and much of its interior decoration and furnishings. Napier Waller lived in their purpose designed home for some fifty years. What is especially significant about the house is that both it and its contents are quite intact. Napier Waller's studios, examples of his art, that of his two wives and his niece, famous studio potter Klytie Pate, and items connected with his work remain exactly as he left them. Architecturally the house design is innovative in its internal use of space, specifically in the organisation of the studio cum living room and displays a high degree of artistic creativity in the interior decoration.

 

The Waller House in Fairy Hills is so named because it was the residence of Mervyn Napier Waller, the acclaimed artist who gained National fame from his water colours, stained glass, mosaic works and murals and his wife Christian, who was a distinguished artist and designer of stained glass in her own right. In particular Napier Waller's works adorn the Melbourne Town Hall, the Myer Emporium Mural Hall, the Victorian State Library and the Australian War Memorial. The Waller House is a split level house designed by Napier and his first wife Christian who intended the house to be both a home and a workplace. For this the design was conceived to accommodate the tall studies and pieces of the artist's work.

 

The Waller house was built by Phillip Millsom in 1922 and the architectural style of the house is a mixture of Interwar Arts and Crafts, Interwar Old English and Interwar California Bungalow. The house is constructed from reinforced concrete walls with a rough cast pebbledash finish. The roof is steeply pitched with a prominent half timbered gable over the front entrance and has Marseilles pattern terracotta tiles. There are small paned casement windows. There have been several additions to the original design over the years but these have all been sympathetic to the original design.

 

The house is entered from a two sided verandah into an entrance hall, panelled in Tasmanian wood. This has stairs leading to the different levels of the house interior. In one direction the hall leads to a main living hall which was Napier Waller's original studio and later used as the main living room in the house. This room has a high ceiling with casement windows, a musicians’ gallery and a broad brick fireplace flanked by fire-dogs and bellows made by the sculptress Ola Cohn (1892 – 1964). Like many of the other rooms in the house the studio is panelled and floored with Tasmanian hardwood and contains some of the studies for Napier Waller's murals: “The Five Lamps of Learning; the Wise and Foolish Virgins” a mosaic for the University of Western Australia and, “Peace After Victory” a study painting for the State Library of Victoria. Above the panelling the plaster walls are painted in muted colours in wood grain effect. The raftered plaster ceiling has been painted in marble effect with gold leaf. Book shelves, still containing the Wallers’ beautiful books, are built into the panelled walls. Furniture in the room includes a settee with a painted back panel featuring jousting knights, painted by Christian Waller, a leather suite and black bean sideboards and cupboards. This furniture was designed in the nineteen thirties by Napier Waller and by Percy Meldrum and a noted cabinet maker called Goulman. The studio cum hall also contains many ceramic works created by studio potter Klytie Pate who was Christian Waller’s niece and protégée. The entrance hall leads in the other direction to a guest room, known as the “Blue Room”. This was the idea of Napier's wife Christian and has simple built-in glass topped furniture and Napier's murals of the “Labours of Hercules” which include a self portrait of the artist. An alcove section of the room was constructed out of an extension to the verandah. Stairs lead from the entrance hall to the musicians’ gallery which has a window and overlooks the studio cum living room. The kitchen near the studio/hall is panelled and raftered with built-in cupboards conforming to the panelling. The ceiling is stencilled in a fleur-de-lys design by Napier. The dining room lies to the right of the studio cum hall and contains shoulder high panelling and raftered ceilings. It has an angled brick corner fireplace and the walls and ceiling have the same painted treatment as the studio cum living room. The oak dining furniture was designed by Napier. A small den with high window, furnished with leather chairs, opens off the dining room. Opening off the hall to the left is a long rectangular room known as the glass studio. This was added to the house by builder C. Trinck of Hampton in about 1931 and contains Napier Waller's kiln, paintbrushes and stained-glass tools on the benches, and stained glass designs and racks which are still stacked with radiant streaked glass from his work with stained glass windows. A bedroom and bathroom with attic pitched rafter ceiling and casement windows is situated on the upper level of the house. Another bedroom in ship's cabin style with flared wall light fittings and built in bunks opens off this first bedroom.

 

The house backs onto a courtyard enclosed by a long bluestone garden wall. The house is set in a three and a half acre site with cypress hedges and gravelled paths. The garden drops away to a hillside slope with manna gum trees. Set on the slope is a flat roofed studio built in 1937. It has an undercroft beneath a studio room and this contains a lithographic press and a printing press of 1849 for woodcuts and linocuts. This was used by Napier and his first wife Christian to produce prints in the 1930s. Napier was widowed and married his stained glass studio assistant Lorna Reyburn in 1958.

 

The Waller House has recently become famous for yet another reason. The exterior has been used as a backdrop in the ABC/ITV co-production television series, “The Doctor Blake Mysteries” (2013). The house serves as the residence of the program’s lead character, Doctor Lucien Blake (played by Australian actor Craig McLachlan), and the doctor’s 1930s tourer is often seen driving up to or away from the Waller House throughout the series. The Waller House is the only regular backdrop not filmed in the provincial Victorian gold rush city of Ballarat, in which the series is based.

 

The Waller House is still a private residence, even though it was bequeathed to the people of Victoria by Napier Waller under the proviso that it would not revert to state ownership until after the death of his second wife, Lorna. The current leasee of the Waller House is a well known Melbourne antique dealer, who was friends with Lorna Reyburn, and who acts as a loving informal caretaker. He was approached by the Napier Waller Committee of Management and keeps the house neat and tidy, and maintains the garden beautifully. I am very grateful to him for his willingness to open the Waller House, and for allowing me the opportunity to comprehensively photograph this rarely seen gem of Melbourne art, architecture and history.

 

Mervyn Napier Waller (1893 – 1972) was an Australian artist. Born in Penshurst, Victoria, Napier was the son of William Waller, contractor, and his wife Sarah, née Napier. Educated locally until aged 14, he then worked on his father's farm. In 1913 he began studies at the National Gallery schools, Melbourne, and first exhibited water-colours and drawings at the Victorian Artists' Society in 1915. On 31 August of that year he enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force, and on 21 October at the manse of St Andrew's Presbyterian Church, Carlton, married Christian Yandell, a fellow student and artist from Castlemaine. Serving in France from the end of 1916, Waller was seriously wounded in action, and his right arm had to be amputated at the shoulder. Whilst convalescing in France and England Napier learned to write and draw with his left hand. After coming home to Australia he exhibited a series of war sketches in Melbourne, Sydney, Adelaide and Hobart between 1918 and 1919 which helped to establish his reputation as a talented artist. Napier continued to paint in water-colour, taking his subjects from mythology and classical legend, but exhibited a group of linocuts in 1923. In 1927 Napier completed his first major mural for the Menzies Hotel, Melbourne. Next year his mural 'Peace after Victory' was installed in the State Library of Victoria. Visiting England and Europe in 1929 to study stained glass, the Wallers travelled in Italy where Napier was deeply impressed by the mosaics in Ravenna and studied mosaic in Venice. He returned to Melbourne in March 1930 and began to work almost exclusively in stained glass and mosaic. In 1931 he completed a great monumental mosaic for the University of Western Australia; two important commissions in Melbourne followed: the mosaic façade for Newspaper House (completed 1933) and murals for the dining hall in the Myer Emporium (completed 1935). During this time he also worked on a number of stained-glass commissions, some in collaboration with his wife, Christian. Between 1939 and 1945 he worked as an illustrator and undertook no major commissions. In 1946 he finished a three-lancet window commemorating the New Guinea martyrs for St Peter's Church, Eastern Hill. In 1952-58 he designed and completed the mosaics and stained glass for the Hall of Memory at the Australian War Memorial, Canberra. On 25 January 1958 in a civil ceremony in Melbourne Waller had married Lorna Marion Reyburn, a New Zealand-born artist who had long been his assistant in stained glass.

 

Christian Waller (1894 – 1954) was an Australian artist. Born in Castlemaine, Victoria, Christian was the fifth daughter and youngest of seven children of William Edward Yandell a Victorian-born plasterer, and his wife Emily, née James, who came from England. Christian began her art studies in 1905 under Carl Steiner at the Castlemaine School of Mines. The family moved in 1910 to Melbourne where Christian attended the National Gallery schools. She studied under Frederick McCubbin and Bernard Hall, won several student prizes, exhibited (1913-22) with the Victorian Artists Society and illustrated publications. On 21 October 1915 at the manse of St Andrew's Presbyterian Church, Carlton, she married her former fellow-student Mervyn Napier Waller; they were childless, but adopted Christian’s niece Klytie Pate, in all but a legal sense. During the 1920s Christian Waller became a leading book illustrator, winning acclaim as the first Australian artist to illustrate Alice in Wonderland (1924). Her work reflected Classical, Medieval, Pre-Raphaelite and Art Nouveau influences. She also produced woodcuts and linocuts, including fine bookplates. From about 1928 she designed stained-glass windows. The Wallers travelled to London in 1929 to investigate the manufacture of stained glass at Whall & Whall Ltd's premises. Returning to Australia via Italy, they studied the mosaics at Ravenna and Venice. Christian signed and exhibited her work under her maiden name until 1930, but thereafter used her married name. In the 1930s Waller produced her finest prints, book designs and stained glass, her work being more Art Deco in style and showing her interest in theosophy. She created stained-glass windows for a number of churches—especially for those designed by Louis Williams—in Melbourne, Geelong, and rural centres in New South Wales. Sometimes she collaborated with her husband, both being recognized as among Australia's leading stained-glass artists. Estranged from Napier, Christian went to New York in 1939. In 1940 she returned to the home she shared with her husband in Fairy Hills where she immersed herself in her work and became increasingly reclusive. In 1942 she painted a large mural for Christ Church, Geelong; by 1948 she had completed more than fifty stained-glass windows.

 

Klytie Pate (1912 – 2010) was an Australian Studio Potter who emerged as an innovator in the use of unusual glazes and the extensive incising, piercing and ornamentation of earthenware pottery. She was one of a small group of Melbourne art potters which included Marguerite Mahood and Reg Preston who were pioneers in the 1930‘s of ceramic art nationwide. Her early work was strongly influenced by her aunt, the artist and printmaker, Christian Waller. Klytie’s father remarried when she was 13, so Klytie went to live with her aunt, Christian Waller. Christian and her husband Napier Waller encouraged her interest in art and printmaking. She spent time at their studio in Fairy Hills, and thus her work reflected Art Deco, Art Nouveau, the Pre Raphaelites, Egyptian art, Greek mythology, and Theosophy. Klytie made several plaster masks that were displayed by the Wallers in their home and experimented with linocut, a medium used by Christian in her printmaking. Her aunt further encouraged Klytie by arranging for her to study modelling under Ola Cohn, the Melbourne sculptor. Klytie became renowned for her high quality, geometric Art Deco designed pottery which is eagerly sought after today by museums, art galleries, collectors and auction houses.

 

Fairy Hills is a small north eastern suburb of Melbourne. Leafy, with streets lined with banks of agapanthus, it is an area well known for its exclusivity, affluence and artistic connections. It was designed along the lines of London’s garden suburbs, such as Hampstead and Highgate, where houses and gardens blended together to create an informal, village like feel. Many of Fairy Hills’ houses have been designed by well known architects of the early Twentieth Century such as Walter Burley Griffin (1876 – 1937) and have gardens landscaped by designers like Edna Walling (1895 – 1973). Fairy Hills is the result of a subdivision of an 1840s farm called “Fairy Hills” which was commenced in the years just before the First World War (1914 – 1918). “Lucerne Farm”, a late 1830s farm associated with Governor La Trobe, was also nearby.

  

Located at the end of a sleepy little cul-de-sac in the leafy north east Melburnian suburb of Fairy Hills is a beautiful pebbledash Arts and Crafts style bungalow. Quiet and unassuming amid its well kept gardens, this bungalow is quite significant historically as it is the creation and home of nationally renowned husband and wife artists Christian and Napier Waller, and is known as the Waller House. Together they designed the house and much of its interior decoration and furnishings. Napier Waller lived in their purpose designed home for some fifty years. What is especially significant about the house is that both it and its contents are quite intact. Napier Waller's studios, examples of his art, that of his two wives and his niece, famous studio potter Klytie Pate, and items connected with his work remain exactly as he left them. Architecturally the house design is innovative in its internal use of space, specifically in the organisation of the studio cum living room and displays a high degree of artistic creativity in the interior decoration.

 

The Waller House in Fairy Hills is so named because it was the residence of Mervyn Napier Waller, the acclaimed artist who gained National fame from his water colours, stained glass, mosaic works and murals and his wife Christian, who was a distinguished artist and designer of stained glass in her own right. In particular Napier Waller's works adorn the Melbourne Town Hall, the Myer Emporium Mural Hall, the Victorian State Library and the Australian War Memorial. The Waller House is a split level house designed by Napier and his first wife Christian who intended the house to be both a home and a workplace. For this the design was conceived to accommodate the tall studies and pieces of the artist's work.

 

The Waller house was built by Phillip Millsom in 1922 and the architectural style of the house is a mixture of Interwar Arts and Crafts, Interwar Old English and Interwar California Bungalow. The house is constructed from reinforced concrete walls with a rough cast pebbledash finish. The roof is steeply pitched with a prominent half timbered gable over the front entrance and has Marseilles pattern terracotta tiles. There are small paned casement windows. There have been several additions to the original design over the years but these have all been sympathetic to the original design.

 

The house is entered from a two sided verandah into an entrance hall, panelled in Tasmanian wood. This has stairs leading to the different levels of the house interior. In one direction the hall leads to a main living hall which was Napier Waller's original studio and later used as the main living room in the house. This room has a high ceiling with casement windows, a musicians’ gallery and a broad brick fireplace flanked by fire-dogs and bellows made by the sculptress Ola Cohn (1892 – 1964). Like many of the other rooms in the house the studio is panelled and floored with Tasmanian hardwood and contains some of the studies for Napier Waller's murals: “The Five Lamps of Learning; the Wise and Foolish Virgins” a mosaic for the University of Western Australia and, “Peace After Victory” a study painting for the State Library of Victoria. Above the panelling the plaster walls are painted in muted colours in wood grain effect. The raftered plaster ceiling has been painted in marble effect with gold leaf. Book shelves, still containing the Wallers’ beautiful books, are built into the panelled walls. Furniture in the room includes a settee with a painted back panel featuring jousting knights, painted by Christian Waller, a leather suite and black bean sideboards and cupboards. This furniture was designed in the nineteen thirties by Napier Waller and by Percy Meldrum and a noted cabinet maker called Goulman. The studio cum hall also contains many ceramic works created by studio potter Klytie Pate who was Christian Waller’s niece and protégée. The entrance hall leads in the other direction to a guest room, known as the “Blue Room”. This was the idea of Napier's wife Christian and has simple built-in glass topped furniture and Napier's murals of the “Labours of Hercules” which include a self portrait of the artist. An alcove section of the room was constructed out of an extension to the verandah. Stairs lead from the entrance hall to the musicians’ gallery which has a window and overlooks the studio cum living room. The kitchen near the studio/hall is panelled and raftered with built-in cupboards conforming to the panelling. The ceiling is stencilled in a fleur-de-lys design by Napier. The dining room lies to the right of the studio cum hall and contains shoulder high panelling and raftered ceilings. It has an angled brick corner fireplace and the walls and ceiling have the same painted treatment as the studio cum living room. The oak dining furniture was designed by Napier. A small den with high window, furnished with leather chairs, opens off the dining room. Opening off the hall to the left is a long rectangular room known as the glass studio. This was added to the house by builder C. Trinck of Hampton in about 1931 and contains Napier Waller's kiln, paintbrushes and stained-glass tools on the benches, and stained glass designs and racks which are still stacked with radiant streaked glass from his work with stained glass windows. A bedroom and bathroom with attic pitched rafter ceiling and casement windows is situated on the upper level of the house. Another bedroom in ship's cabin style with flared wall light fittings and built in bunks opens off this first bedroom.

 

The house backs onto a courtyard enclosed by a long bluestone garden wall. The house is set in a three and a half acre site with cypress hedges and gravelled paths. The garden drops away to a hillside slope with manna gum trees. Set on the slope is a flat roofed studio built in 1937. It has an undercroft beneath a studio room and this contains a lithographic press and a printing press of 1849 for woodcuts and linocuts. This was used by Napier and his first wife Christian to produce prints in the 1930s. Napier was widowed and married his stained glass studio assistant Lorna Reyburn in 1958.

 

The Waller House has recently become famous for yet another reason. The exterior has been used as a backdrop in the ABC/ITV co-production television series, “The Doctor Blake Mysteries” (2013). The house serves as the residence of the program’s lead character, Doctor Lucien Blake (played by Australian actor Craig McLachlan), and the doctor’s 1930s tourer is often seen driving up to or away from the Waller House throughout the series. The Waller House is the only regular backdrop not filmed in the provincial Victorian gold rush city of Ballarat, in which the series is based.

 

The Waller House is still a private residence, even though it was bequeathed to the people of Victoria by Napier Waller under the proviso that it would not revert to state ownership until after the death of his second wife, Lorna. The current leasee of the Waller House is a well known Melbourne antique dealer, who was friends with Lorna Reyburn, and who acts as a loving informal caretaker. He was approached by the Napier Waller Committee of Management and keeps the house neat and tidy, and maintains the garden beautifully. I am very grateful to him for his willingness to open the Waller House, and for allowing me the opportunity to comprehensively photograph this rarely seen gem of Melbourne art, architecture and history.

 

Mervyn Napier Waller (1893 – 1972) was an Australian artist. Born in Penshurst, Victoria, Napier was the son of William Waller, contractor, and his wife Sarah, née Napier. Educated locally until aged 14, he then worked on his father's farm. In 1913 he began studies at the National Gallery schools, Melbourne, and first exhibited water-colours and drawings at the Victorian Artists' Society in 1915. On 31 August of that year he enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force, and on 21 October at the manse of St Andrew's Presbyterian Church, Carlton, married Christian Yandell, a fellow student and artist from Castlemaine. Serving in France from the end of 1916, Waller was seriously wounded in action, and his right arm had to be amputated at the shoulder. Whilst convalescing in France and England Napier learned to write and draw with his left hand. After coming home to Australia he exhibited a series of war sketches in Melbourne, Sydney, Adelaide and Hobart between 1918 and 1919 which helped to establish his reputation as a talented artist. Napier continued to paint in water-colour, taking his subjects from mythology and classical legend, but exhibited a group of linocuts in 1923. In 1927 Napier completed his first major mural for the Menzies Hotel, Melbourne. Next year his mural 'Peace after Victory' was installed in the State Library of Victoria. Visiting England and Europe in 1929 to study stained glass, the Wallers travelled in Italy where Napier was deeply impressed by the mosaics in Ravenna and studied mosaic in Venice. He returned to Melbourne in March 1930 and began to work almost exclusively in stained glass and mosaic. In 1931 he completed a great monumental mosaic for the University of Western Australia; two important commissions in Melbourne followed: the mosaic façade for Newspaper House (completed 1933) and murals for the dining hall in the Myer Emporium (completed 1935). During this time he also worked on a number of stained-glass commissions, some in collaboration with his wife, Christian. Between 1939 and 1945 he worked as an illustrator and undertook no major commissions. In 1946 he finished a three-lancet window commemorating the New Guinea martyrs for St Peter's Church, Eastern Hill. In 1952-58 he designed and completed the mosaics and stained glass for the Hall of Memory at the Australian War Memorial, Canberra. On 25 January 1958 in a civil ceremony in Melbourne Waller had married Lorna Marion Reyburn, a New Zealand-born artist who had long been his assistant in stained glass.

 

Christian Waller (1894 – 1954) was an Australian artist. Born in Castlemaine, Victoria, Christian was the fifth daughter and youngest of seven children of William Edward Yandell a Victorian-born plasterer, and his wife Emily, née James, who came from England. Christian began her art studies in 1905 under Carl Steiner at the Castlemaine School of Mines. The family moved in 1910 to Melbourne where Christian attended the National Gallery schools. She studied under Frederick McCubbin and Bernard Hall, won several student prizes, exhibited (1913-22) with the Victorian Artists Society and illustrated publications. On 21 October 1915 at the manse of St Andrew's Presbyterian Church, Carlton, she married her former fellow-student Mervyn Napier Waller; they were childless, but adopted Christian’s niece Klytie Pate, in all but a legal sense. During the 1920s Christian Waller became a leading book illustrator, winning acclaim as the first Australian artist to illustrate Alice in Wonderland (1924). Her work reflected Classical, Medieval, Pre-Raphaelite and Art Nouveau influences. She also produced woodcuts and linocuts, including fine bookplates. From about 1928 she designed stained-glass windows. The Wallers travelled to London in 1929 to investigate the manufacture of stained glass at Whall & Whall Ltd's premises. Returning to Australia via Italy, they studied the mosaics at Ravenna and Venice. Christian signed and exhibited her work under her maiden name until 1930, but thereafter used her married name. In the 1930s Waller produced her finest prints, book designs and stained glass, her work being more Art Deco in style and showing her interest in theosophy. She created stained-glass windows for a number of churches—especially for those designed by Louis Williams—in Melbourne, Geelong, and rural centres in New South Wales. Sometimes she collaborated with her husband, both being recognized as among Australia's leading stained-glass artists. Estranged from Napier, Christian went to New York in 1939. In 1940 she returned to the home she shared with her husband in Fairy Hills where she immersed herself in her work and became increasingly reclusive. In 1942 she painted a large mural for Christ Church, Geelong; by 1948 she had completed more than fifty stained-glass windows.

 

Klytie Pate (1912 – 2010) was an Australian Studio Potter who emerged as an innovator in the use of unusual glazes and the extensive incising, piercing and ornamentation of earthenware pottery. She was one of a small group of Melbourne art potters which included Marguerite Mahood and Reg Preston who were pioneers in the 1930‘s of ceramic art nationwide. Her early work was strongly influenced by her aunt, the artist and printmaker, Christian Waller. Klytie’s father remarried when she was 13, so Klytie went to live with her aunt, Christian Waller. Christian and her husband Napier Waller encouraged her interest in art and printmaking. She spent time at their studio in Fairy Hills, and thus her work reflected Art Deco, Art Nouveau, the Pre Raphaelites, Egyptian art, Greek mythology, and Theosophy. Klytie made several plaster masks that were displayed by the Wallers in their home and experimented with linocut, a medium used by Christian in her printmaking. Her aunt further encouraged Klytie by arranging for her to study modelling under Ola Cohn, the Melbourne sculptor. Klytie became renowned for her high quality, geometric Art Deco designed pottery which is eagerly sought after today by museums, art galleries, collectors and auction houses.

 

Fairy Hills is a small north eastern suburb of Melbourne. Leafy, with streets lined with banks of agapanthus, it is an area well known for its exclusivity, affluence and artistic connections. It was designed along the lines of London’s garden suburbs, such as Hampstead and Highgate, where houses and gardens blended together to create an informal, village like feel. Many of Fairy Hills’ houses have been designed by well known architects of the early Twentieth Century such as Walter Burley Griffin (1876 – 1937) and have gardens landscaped by designers like Edna Walling (1895 – 1973). Fairy Hills is the result of a subdivision of an 1840s farm called “Fairy Hills” which was commenced in the years just before the First World War (1914 – 1918). “Lucerne Farm”, a late 1830s farm associated with Governor La Trobe, was also nearby.

  

Located at the end of a sleepy little cul-de-sac in the leafy north east Melburnian suburb of Fairy Hills is a beautiful pebbledash Arts and Crafts style bungalow. Quiet and unassuming amid its well kept gardens, this bungalow is quite significant historically as it is the creation and home of nationally renowned husband and wife artists Christian and Napier Waller, and is known as the Waller House. Together they designed the house and much of its interior decoration and furnishings. Napier Waller lived in their purpose designed home for some fifty years. What is especially significant about the house is that both it and its contents are quite intact. Napier Waller's studios, examples of his art, that of his two wives and his niece, famous studio potter Klytie Pate, and items connected with his work remain exactly as he left them. Architecturally the house design is innovative in its internal use of space, specifically in the organisation of the studio cum living room and displays a high degree of artistic creativity in the interior decoration.

 

The Waller House in Fairy Hills is so named because it was the residence of Mervyn Napier Waller, the acclaimed artist who gained National fame from his water colours, stained glass, mosaic works and murals and his wife Christian, who was a distinguished artist and designer of stained glass in her own right. In particular Napier Waller's works adorn the Melbourne Town Hall, the Myer Emporium Mural Hall, the Victorian State Library and the Australian War Memorial. The Waller House is a split level house designed by Napier and his first wife Christian who intended the house to be both a home and a workplace. For this the design was conceived to accommodate the tall studies and pieces of the artist's work.

 

The Waller house was built by Phillip Millsom in 1922 and the architectural style of the house is a mixture of Interwar Arts and Crafts, Interwar Old English and Interwar California Bungalow. The house is constructed from reinforced concrete walls with a rough cast pebbledash finish. The roof is steeply pitched with a prominent half timbered gable over the front entrance and has Marseilles pattern terracotta tiles. There are small paned casement windows. There have been several additions to the original design over the years but these have all been sympathetic to the original design.

 

The house is entered from a two sided verandah into an entrance hall, panelled in Tasmanian wood. This has stairs leading to the different levels of the house interior. In one direction the hall leads to a main living hall which was Napier Waller's original studio and later used as the main living room in the house. This room has a high ceiling with casement windows, a musicians’ gallery and a broad brick fireplace flanked by fire-dogs and bellows made by the sculptress Ola Cohn (1892 – 1964). Like many of the other rooms in the house the studio is panelled and floored with Tasmanian hardwood and contains some of the studies for Napier Waller's murals: “The Five Lamps of Learning; the Wise and Foolish Virgins” a mosaic for the University of Western Australia and, “Peace After Victory” a study painting for the State Library of Victoria. Above the panelling the plaster walls are painted in muted colours in wood grain effect. The raftered plaster ceiling has been painted in marble effect with gold leaf. Book shelves, still containing the Wallers’ beautiful books, are built into the panelled walls. Furniture in the room includes a settee with a painted back panel featuring jousting knights, painted by Christian Waller, a leather suite and black bean sideboards and cupboards. This furniture was designed in the nineteen thirties by Napier Waller and by Percy Meldrum and a noted cabinet maker called Goulman. The studio cum hall also contains many ceramic works created by studio potter Klytie Pate who was Christian Waller’s niece and protégée. The entrance hall leads in the other direction to a guest room, known as the “Blue Room”. This was the idea of Napier's wife Christian and has simple built-in glass topped furniture and Napier's murals of the “Labours of Hercules” which include a self portrait of the artist. An alcove section of the room was constructed out of an extension to the verandah. Stairs lead from the entrance hall to the musicians’ gallery which has a window and overlooks the studio cum living room. The kitchen near the studio/hall is panelled and raftered with built-in cupboards conforming to the panelling. The ceiling is stencilled in a fleur-de-lys design by Napier. The dining room lies to the right of the studio cum hall and contains shoulder high panelling and raftered ceilings. It has an angled brick corner fireplace and the walls and ceiling have the same painted treatment as the studio cum living room. The oak dining furniture was designed by Napier. A small den with high window, furnished with leather chairs, opens off the dining room. Opening off the hall to the left is a long rectangular room known as the glass studio. This was added to the house by builder C. Trinck of Hampton in about 1931 and contains Napier Waller's kiln, paintbrushes and stained-glass tools on the benches, and stained glass designs and racks which are still stacked with radiant streaked glass from his work with stained glass windows. A bedroom and bathroom with attic pitched rafter ceiling and casement windows is situated on the upper level of the house. Another bedroom in ship's cabin style with flared wall light fittings and built in bunks opens off this first bedroom.

 

The house backs onto a courtyard enclosed by a long bluestone garden wall. The house is set in a three and a half acre site with cypress hedges and gravelled paths. The garden drops away to a hillside slope with manna gum trees. Set on the slope is a flat roofed studio built in 1937. It has an undercroft beneath a studio room and this contains a lithographic press and a printing press of 1849 for woodcuts and linocuts. This was used by Napier and his first wife Christian to produce prints in the 1930s. Napier was widowed and married his stained glass studio assistant Lorna Reyburn in 1958.

 

The Waller House has recently become famous for yet another reason. The exterior has been used as a backdrop in the ABC/ITV co-production television series, “The Doctor Blake Mysteries” (2013). The house serves as the residence of the program’s lead character, Doctor Lucien Blake (played by Australian actor Craig McLachlan), and the doctor’s 1930s tourer is often seen driving up to or away from the Waller House throughout the series. The Waller House is the only regular backdrop not filmed in the provincial Victorian gold rush city of Ballarat, in which the series is based.

 

The Waller House is still a private residence, even though it was bequeathed to the people of Victoria by Napier Waller under the proviso that it would not revert to state ownership until after the death of his second wife, Lorna. The current leasee of the Waller House is a well known Melbourne antique dealer, who was friends with Lorna Reyburn, and who acts as a loving informal caretaker. He was approached by the Napier Waller Committee of Management and keeps the house neat and tidy, and maintains the garden beautifully. I am very grateful to him for his willingness to open the Waller House, and for allowing me the opportunity to comprehensively photograph this rarely seen gem of Melbourne art, architecture and history.

 

Mervyn Napier Waller (1893 – 1972) was an Australian artist. Born in Penshurst, Victoria, Napier was the son of William Waller, contractor, and his wife Sarah, née Napier. Educated locally until aged 14, he then worked on his father's farm. In 1913 he began studies at the National Gallery schools, Melbourne, and first exhibited water-colours and drawings at the Victorian Artists' Society in 1915. On 31 August of that year he enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force, and on 21 October at the manse of St Andrew's Presbyterian Church, Carlton, married Christian Yandell, a fellow student and artist from Castlemaine. Serving in France from the end of 1916, Waller was seriously wounded in action, and his right arm had to be amputated at the shoulder. Whilst convalescing in France and England Napier learned to write and draw with his left hand. After coming home to Australia he exhibited a series of war sketches in Melbourne, Sydney, Adelaide and Hobart between 1918 and 1919 which helped to establish his reputation as a talented artist. Napier continued to paint in water-colour, taking his subjects from mythology and classical legend, but exhibited a group of linocuts in 1923. In 1927 Napier completed his first major mural for the Menzies Hotel, Melbourne. Next year his mural 'Peace after Victory' was installed in the State Library of Victoria. Visiting England and Europe in 1929 to study stained glass, the Wallers travelled in Italy where Napier was deeply impressed by the mosaics in Ravenna and studied mosaic in Venice. He returned to Melbourne in March 1930 and began to work almost exclusively in stained glass and mosaic. In 1931 he completed a great monumental mosaic for the University of Western Australia; two important commissions in Melbourne followed: the mosaic façade for Newspaper House (completed 1933) and murals for the dining hall in the Myer Emporium (completed 1935). During this time he also worked on a number of stained-glass commissions, some in collaboration with his wife, Christian. Between 1939 and 1945 he worked as an illustrator and undertook no major commissions. In 1946 he finished a three-lancet window commemorating the New Guinea martyrs for St Peter's Church, Eastern Hill. In 1952-58 he designed and completed the mosaics and stained glass for the Hall of Memory at the Australian War Memorial, Canberra. On 25 January 1958 in a civil ceremony in Melbourne Waller had married Lorna Marion Reyburn, a New Zealand-born artist who had long been his assistant in stained glass.

 

Christian Waller (1894 – 1954) was an Australian artist. Born in Castlemaine, Victoria, Christian was the fifth daughter and youngest of seven children of William Edward Yandell a Victorian-born plasterer, and his wife Emily, née James, who came from England. Christian began her art studies in 1905 under Carl Steiner at the Castlemaine School of Mines. The family moved in 1910 to Melbourne where Christian attended the National Gallery schools. She studied under Frederick McCubbin and Bernard Hall, won several student prizes, exhibited (1913-22) with the Victorian Artists Society and illustrated publications. On 21 October 1915 at the manse of St Andrew's Presbyterian Church, Carlton, she married her former fellow-student Mervyn Napier Waller; they were childless, but adopted Christian’s niece Klytie Pate, in all but a legal sense. During the 1920s Christian Waller became a leading book illustrator, winning acclaim as the first Australian artist to illustrate Alice in Wonderland (1924). Her work reflected Classical, Medieval, Pre-Raphaelite and Art Nouveau influences. She also produced woodcuts and linocuts, including fine bookplates. From about 1928 she designed stained-glass windows. The Wallers travelled to London in 1929 to investigate the manufacture of stained glass at Whall & Whall Ltd's premises. Returning to Australia via Italy, they studied the mosaics at Ravenna and Venice. Christian signed and exhibited her work under her maiden name until 1930, but thereafter used her married name. In the 1930s Waller produced her finest prints, book designs and stained glass, her work being more Art Deco in style and showing her interest in theosophy. She created stained-glass windows for a number of churches—especially for those designed by Louis Williams—in Melbourne, Geelong, and rural centres in New South Wales. Sometimes she collaborated with her husband, both being recognized as among Australia's leading stained-glass artists. Estranged from Napier, Christian went to New York in 1939. In 1940 she returned to the home she shared with her husband in Fairy Hills where she immersed herself in her work and became increasingly reclusive. In 1942 she painted a large mural for Christ Church, Geelong; by 1948 she had completed more than fifty stained-glass windows.

 

Klytie Pate (1912 – 2010) was an Australian Studio Potter who emerged as an innovator in the use of unusual glazes and the extensive incising, piercing and ornamentation of earthenware pottery. She was one of a small group of Melbourne art potters which included Marguerite Mahood and Reg Preston who were pioneers in the 1930‘s of ceramic art nationwide. Her early work was strongly influenced by her aunt, the artist and printmaker, Christian Waller. Klytie’s father remarried when she was 13, so Klytie went to live with her aunt, Christian Waller. Christian and her husband Napier Waller encouraged her interest in art and printmaking. She spent time at their studio in Fairy Hills, and thus her work reflected Art Deco, Art Nouveau, the Pre Raphaelites, Egyptian art, Greek mythology, and Theosophy. Klytie made several plaster masks that were displayed by the Wallers in their home and experimented with linocut, a medium used by Christian in her printmaking. Her aunt further encouraged Klytie by arranging for her to study modelling under Ola Cohn, the Melbourne sculptor. Klytie became renowned for her high quality, geometric Art Deco designed pottery which is eagerly sought after today by museums, art galleries, collectors and auction houses.

 

Fairy Hills is a small north eastern suburb of Melbourne. Leafy, with streets lined with banks of agapanthus, it is an area well known for its exclusivity, affluence and artistic connections. It was designed along the lines of London’s garden suburbs, such as Hampstead and Highgate, where houses and gardens blended together to create an informal, village like feel. Many of Fairy Hills’ houses have been designed by well known architects of the early Twentieth Century such as Walter Burley Griffin (1876 – 1937) and have gardens landscaped by designers like Edna Walling (1895 – 1973). Fairy Hills is the result of a subdivision of an 1840s farm called “Fairy Hills” which was commenced in the years just before the First World War (1914 – 1918). “Lucerne Farm”, a late 1830s farm associated with Governor La Trobe, was also nearby.

  

Friday, October 7, 2022

 

On October 7, the Vanderbilt MPH Program celebrated its 25th anniversary and the Global Health track’s 10th anniversary!

 

Alumni, students, faculty, and staff were invited to connect with classmates, friends, mentors, and colleagues and celebrate 25 years of Vanderbilt’s Master of Public Health Program and 10 years of the program’s Global Health track. Attendees toasted to the MPH Program’s first alumni award recipients, too!

 

Photo by Terry Wyatt, www.terrywyattphotography.com

 

Nashville, TN

The West African Agricultural Productivity Program (WAAPP), sponsored by the World Bank and the government of Senegal, is providing one-time subsidies on the sale of 1,713 tons of maize seeds, 90 tons of millet seeds, and 122 tons of sorghum seeds in order to help ease the financial burden on Senegalese small holder farmers who have already lost this year’s sowing. Photo: Daniella Van Leggelo-Padilla / World Bank

 

Photo ID: 20140813-IMG_5168 Kaolack

In scratching out a 64-61 win over Maryland Eastern Shore on Saturday evening at the HU Convocation Center, the Hampton University men's basketball team snapped its six-game losing streak.

 

The Pirates improved to 9-14 overall and 5-5 in the MEAC on the season.

 

Head coach Edward Joyner Jr. won his 91st career game in the process, becoming the program's all-time winningest Div. I coach – surpassing Steve Merfeld.

 

Guard Reginald Johnson registered his second straight 20-point game, leading all Pirate scorers with 21 points on 7-for-15 shooting. Guard/forward Dwight Meikle added 16 points and a team-high 11 rebounds for his fourth double-double of the season.

 

Guard Deron Powers added 11 points and four assists.

The Pirates shot 44.2 percent (23-for-52) from the floor – thanks in large part to a 14-for-25 effort (56.0 percent) in the second half. Hampton scored 25 points off of 16 UMES turnovers, and Hampton held a 26-22 edge in points in the paint.

 

A layup from Devin Martin with 2:14 left in the game tied the contest at 58-58, before Johnson answered with 1:11 left by converting an acrobatic 3-point play to put the Pirates up 61-58. Dominique Elliott cut that lead to 61-60 with a jumper with 55 seconds left.

 

But Meikle put his stamp on the game with 42 seconds left, finding space on the fast break before floating in the air, making it look as if he would finger-roll the ball into the hoop, before slamming the ball home with one hand to give the Pirates a 63-60 lead.

 

The two teams traded free throws down the stretch, but Martin missed both of his 3-pointers in the closing moments to hand the Pirates the hard-fought win.

 

The UMES led much of the night, though – particularly in the first half. The Hawks opened the game with six straight – thanks to back-to-back 3-pointers from Ryan Andino – before the Pirates cut the lead to 6-5 on a jumper in the paint from junior forward Jervon Pressley.

 

The Hawks opened the game back up, taking a 22-10 lead at the 8:37 mark after a 3-pointer from Martin. A dunk from Michael Myers and a layup from Devon Walker gave UMES a 29-16 lead with 2:39 left in the half.

 

But Hampton scored the last seven points of the frame – a jumper and 3-pointer from Meikle and a jumper from Powers – to cut UMES' lead to 29-23 at the break.

 

That momentum carried into the second half, as the Pirates cut UMES' lead to one on three separate occasions before taking their first lead of the night on a Johnson layup with 15:12 left – putting Hampton up 36-35.

Johnson then hit a trey to put the Pirates up 39-35 at the 13:32 mark.

 

Johnson added a layup with 13:14 remaining to give the Pirates a 41-37 lead, before UMES went on a 10-1 run to take a 47-42 lead with 10:39 left to play after a dunk from Elliott. Elliott later gave the UMES a 53-48 lead at the 6:29 mark with a free throw.

 

After a pair of Martin free throws gave the Hawks a 55-50 lead, the Pirates went on a 7-0 spurt, taking a 57-55 lead with 3:13 left to play after a jumper from Powers.

 

Red Weasel Media was sitting on the baseline to capture all of the high flying action. Go Pirates!

S72-47794 (March 1972) --- Skylab, a 100-ton manned orbital scientific space station, is scheduled to be launched and placed in near-Earth orbit early in 1973. The program's nine prime crewmen, selected for the three manned Skylab missions, are pictured with an artist's concept of a completely deployed cluster of the Skylab components in Earth orbit. The first Skylab mission will launch and place in orbit the hardware shown here with the exception of the Apollo-type spacecraft docked at left end. The Command and Service Modules (CSM) will on three occasions in a projected eight-month period go up and dock with the Skylab cluster, thus transporting a fresh crew of three astronauts to conduct several weeks of experimenting and observations. Those manned missions will be known as Skylabs II, III and IV. They have as their crewmen the following astronauts: Skylab II -- Charles Conrad Jr., commander; Joseph P. Kerwin, science pilot; and Paul J. Weitz, pilot. Skylab III -- Alan L. Bean, commander; Owen K. Garriot, science pilot; and Jack R. Lousma, pilot. Skylab IV -- Gerald P. Carr, commander; Edward G. Gibson, science pilot; and William R. Pogue, pilot. Photo credit: NASA

Veteran wildland firefighters train at the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) U.S. Forest Service (USFS) National Helicopter Rappel Program’s Rappel Academy at Salmon Air Base in Salmon, ID on Tuesday, May 14, 2014. This annual refresher training enables graduates to maintain proficiency in various forms of aerial delivery of fire fighters. Rappel crews may be utilized for large fire support, all hazard incident operations, and resource management objectives. USDA photo by Lance Cheung.

The NMH Theater Program's production of Marian, or The True Tale of Robin Hood by Adam Szymkowiez, was performed in the Chiles Theater of the Rhodes Arts Center, March 31 - April 2, 2022. Photography by Glenn Minshall.

Located at the end of a sleepy little cul-de-sac in the leafy north east Melburnian suburb of Fairy Hills is a beautiful pebbledash Arts and Crafts style bungalow. Quiet and unassuming amid its well kept gardens, this bungalow is quite significant historically as it is the creation and home of nationally renowned husband and wife artists Christian and Napier Waller, and is known as the Waller House. Together they designed the house and much of its interior decoration and furnishings. Napier Waller lived in their purpose designed home for some fifty years. What is especially significant about the house is that both it and its contents are quite intact. Napier Waller's studios, examples of his art, that of his two wives and his niece, famous studio potter Klytie Pate, and items connected with his work remain exactly as he left them. Architecturally the house design is innovative in its internal use of space, specifically in the organisation of the studio cum living room and displays a high degree of artistic creativity in the interior decoration.

 

The Waller House in Fairy Hills is so named because it was the residence of Mervyn Napier Waller, the acclaimed artist who gained National fame from his water colours, stained glass, mosaic works and murals and his wife Christian, who was a distinguished artist and designer of stained glass in her own right. In particular Napier Waller's works adorn the Melbourne Town Hall, the Myer Emporium Mural Hall, the Victorian State Library and the Australian War Memorial. The Waller House is a split level house designed by Napier and his first wife Christian who intended the house to be both a home and a workplace. For this the design was conceived to accommodate the tall studies and pieces of the artist's work.

 

The Waller house was built by Phillip Millsom in 1922 and the architectural style of the house is a mixture of Interwar Arts and Crafts, Interwar Old English and Interwar California Bungalow. The house is constructed from reinforced concrete walls with a rough cast pebbledash finish. The roof is steeply pitched with a prominent half timbered gable over the front entrance and has Marseilles pattern terracotta tiles. There are small paned casement windows. There have been several additions to the original design over the years but these have all been sympathetic to the original design.

 

The house is entered from a two sided verandah into an entrance hall, panelled in Tasmanian wood. This has stairs leading to the different levels of the house interior. In one direction the hall leads to a main living hall which was Napier Waller's original studio and later used as the main living room in the house. This room has a high ceiling with casement windows, a musicians’ gallery and a broad brick fireplace flanked by fire-dogs and bellows made by the sculptress Ola Cohn (1892 – 1964). Like many of the other rooms in the house the studio is panelled and floored with Tasmanian hardwood and contains some of the studies for Napier Waller's murals: “The Five Lamps of Learning; the Wise and Foolish Virgins” a mosaic for the University of Western Australia and, “Peace After Victory” a study painting for the State Library of Victoria. Above the panelling the plaster walls are painted in muted colours in wood grain effect. The raftered plaster ceiling has been painted in marble effect with gold leaf. Book shelves, still containing the Wallers’ beautiful books, are built into the panelled walls. Furniture in the room includes a settee with a painted back panel featuring jousting knights, painted by Christian Waller, a leather suite and black bean sideboards and cupboards. This furniture was designed in the nineteen thirties by Napier Waller and by Percy Meldrum and a noted cabinet maker called Goulman. The studio cum hall also contains many ceramic works created by studio potter Klytie Pate who was Christian Waller’s niece and protégée. The entrance hall leads in the other direction to a guest room, known as the “Blue Room”. This was the idea of Napier's wife Christian and has simple built-in glass topped furniture and Napier's murals of the “Labours of Hercules” which include a self portrait of the artist. An alcove section of the room was constructed out of an extension to the verandah. Stairs lead from the entrance hall to the musicians’ gallery which has a window and overlooks the studio cum living room. The kitchen near the studio/hall is panelled and raftered with built-in cupboards conforming to the panelling. The ceiling is stencilled in a fleur-de-lys design by Napier. The dining room lies to the right of the studio cum hall and contains shoulder high panelling and raftered ceilings. It has an angled brick corner fireplace and the walls and ceiling have the same painted treatment as the studio cum living room. The oak dining furniture was designed by Napier. A small den with high window, furnished with leather chairs, opens off the dining room. Opening off the hall to the left is a long rectangular room known as the glass studio. This was added to the house by builder C. Trinck of Hampton in about 1931 and contains Napier Waller's kiln, paintbrushes and stained-glass tools on the benches, and stained glass designs and racks which are still stacked with radiant streaked glass from his work with stained glass windows. A bedroom and bathroom with attic pitched rafter ceiling and casement windows is situated on the upper level of the house. Another bedroom in ship's cabin style with flared wall light fittings and built in bunks opens off this first bedroom.

 

The house backs onto a courtyard enclosed by a long bluestone garden wall. The house is set in a three and a half acre site with cypress hedges and gravelled paths. The garden drops away to a hillside slope with manna gum trees. Set on the slope is a flat roofed studio built in 1937. It has an undercroft beneath a studio room and this contains a lithographic press and a printing press of 1849 for woodcuts and linocuts. This was used by Napier and his first wife Christian to produce prints in the 1930s. Napier was widowed and married his stained glass studio assistant Lorna Reyburn in 1958.

 

The Waller House has recently become famous for yet another reason. The exterior has been used as a backdrop in the ABC/ITV co-production television series, “The Doctor Blake Mysteries” (2013). The house serves as the residence of the program’s lead character, Doctor Lucien Blake (played by Australian actor Craig McLachlan), and the doctor’s 1930s tourer is often seen driving up to or away from the Waller House throughout the series. The Waller House is the only regular backdrop not filmed in the provincial Victorian gold rush city of Ballarat, in which the series is based.

 

The Waller House is still a private residence, even though it was bequeathed to the people of Victoria by Napier Waller under the proviso that it would not revert to state ownership until after the death of his second wife, Lorna. The current leasee of the Waller House is a well known Melbourne antique dealer, who was friends with Lorna Reyburn, and who acts as a loving informal caretaker. He was approached by the Napier Waller Committee of Management and keeps the house neat and tidy, and maintains the garden beautifully. I am very grateful to him for his willingness to open the Waller House, and for allowing me the opportunity to comprehensively photograph this rarely seen gem of Melbourne art, architecture and history.

 

Mervyn Napier Waller (1893 – 1972) was an Australian artist. Born in Penshurst, Victoria, Napier was the son of William Waller, contractor, and his wife Sarah, née Napier. Educated locally until aged 14, he then worked on his father's farm. In 1913 he began studies at the National Gallery schools, Melbourne, and first exhibited water-colours and drawings at the Victorian Artists' Society in 1915. On 31 August of that year he enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force, and on 21 October at the manse of St Andrew's Presbyterian Church, Carlton, married Christian Yandell, a fellow student and artist from Castlemaine. Serving in France from the end of 1916, Waller was seriously wounded in action, and his right arm had to be amputated at the shoulder. Whilst convalescing in France and England Napier learned to write and draw with his left hand. After coming home to Australia he exhibited a series of war sketches in Melbourne, Sydney, Adelaide and Hobart between 1918 and 1919 which helped to establish his reputation as a talented artist. Napier continued to paint in water-colour, taking his subjects from mythology and classical legend, but exhibited a group of linocuts in 1923. In 1927 Napier completed his first major mural for the Menzies Hotel, Melbourne. Next year his mural 'Peace after Victory' was installed in the State Library of Victoria. Visiting England and Europe in 1929 to study stained glass, the Wallers travelled in Italy where Napier was deeply impressed by the mosaics in Ravenna and studied mosaic in Venice. He returned to Melbourne in March 1930 and began to work almost exclusively in stained glass and mosaic. In 1931 he completed a great monumental mosaic for the University of Western Australia; two important commissions in Melbourne followed: the mosaic façade for Newspaper House (completed 1933) and murals for the dining hall in the Myer Emporium (completed 1935). During this time he also worked on a number of stained-glass commissions, some in collaboration with his wife, Christian. Between 1939 and 1945 he worked as an illustrator and undertook no major commissions. In 1946 he finished a three-lancet window commemorating the New Guinea martyrs for St Peter's Church, Eastern Hill. In 1952-58 he designed and completed the mosaics and stained glass for the Hall of Memory at the Australian War Memorial, Canberra. On 25 January 1958 in a civil ceremony in Melbourne Waller had married Lorna Marion Reyburn, a New Zealand-born artist who had long been his assistant in stained glass.

 

Christian Waller (1894 – 1954) was an Australian artist. Born in Castlemaine, Victoria, Christian was the fifth daughter and youngest of seven children of William Edward Yandell a Victorian-born plasterer, and his wife Emily, née James, who came from England. Christian began her art studies in 1905 under Carl Steiner at the Castlemaine School of Mines. The family moved in 1910 to Melbourne where Christian attended the National Gallery schools. She studied under Frederick McCubbin and Bernard Hall, won several student prizes, exhibited (1913-22) with the Victorian Artists Society and illustrated publications. On 21 October 1915 at the manse of St Andrew's Presbyterian Church, Carlton, she married her former fellow-student Mervyn Napier Waller; they were childless, but adopted Christian’s niece Klytie Pate, in all but a legal sense. During the 1920s Christian Waller became a leading book illustrator, winning acclaim as the first Australian artist to illustrate Alice in Wonderland (1924). Her work reflected Classical, Medieval, Pre-Raphaelite and Art Nouveau influences. She also produced woodcuts and linocuts, including fine bookplates. From about 1928 she designed stained-glass windows. The Wallers travelled to London in 1929 to investigate the manufacture of stained glass at Whall & Whall Ltd's premises. Returning to Australia via Italy, they studied the mosaics at Ravenna and Venice. Christian signed and exhibited her work under her maiden name until 1930, but thereafter used her married name. In the 1930s Waller produced her finest prints, book designs and stained glass, her work being more Art Deco in style and showing her interest in theosophy. She created stained-glass windows for a number of churches—especially for those designed by Louis Williams—in Melbourne, Geelong, and rural centres in New South Wales. Sometimes she collaborated with her husband, both being recognized as among Australia's leading stained-glass artists. Estranged from Napier, Christian went to New York in 1939. In 1940 she returned to the home she shared with her husband in Fairy Hills where she immersed herself in her work and became increasingly reclusive. In 1942 she painted a large mural for Christ Church, Geelong; by 1948 she had completed more than fifty stained-glass windows.

 

Klytie Pate (1912 – 2010) was an Australian Studio Potter who emerged as an innovator in the use of unusual glazes and the extensive incising, piercing and ornamentation of earthenware pottery. She was one of a small group of Melbourne art potters which included Marguerite Mahood and Reg Preston who were pioneers in the 1930‘s of ceramic art nationwide. Her early work was strongly influenced by her aunt, the artist and printmaker, Christian Waller. Klytie’s father remarried when she was 13, so Klytie went to live with her aunt, Christian Waller. Christian and her husband Napier Waller encouraged her interest in art and printmaking. She spent time at their studio in Fairy Hills, and thus her work reflected Art Deco, Art Nouveau, the Pre Raphaelites, Egyptian art, Greek mythology, and Theosophy. Klytie made several plaster masks that were displayed by the Wallers in their home and experimented with linocut, a medium used by Christian in her printmaking. Her aunt further encouraged Klytie by arranging for her to study modelling under Ola Cohn, the Melbourne sculptor. Klytie became renowned for her high quality, geometric Art Deco designed pottery which is eagerly sought after today by museums, art galleries, collectors and auction houses.

 

Fairy Hills is a small north eastern suburb of Melbourne. Leafy, with streets lined with banks of agapanthus, it is an area well known for its exclusivity, affluence and artistic connections. It was designed along the lines of London’s garden suburbs, such as Hampstead and Highgate, where houses and gardens blended together to create an informal, village like feel. Many of Fairy Hills’ houses have been designed by well known architects of the early Twentieth Century such as Walter Burley Griffin (1876 – 1937) and have gardens landscaped by designers like Edna Walling (1895 – 1973). Fairy Hills is the result of a subdivision of an 1840s farm called “Fairy Hills” which was commenced in the years just before the First World War (1914 – 1918). “Lucerne Farm”, a late 1830s farm associated with Governor La Trobe, was also nearby.

  

Government Island Park is seen in Stafford County, Va., on Dec. 3, 2016. (Photo by Will Parson/Chesapeake Bay Program)

 

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To request permission, send an email briefly describing the proposed use to requests@chesapeakebay.net. Please do not attach jpegs. Instead, reference the corresponding Flickr URL of the image.

 

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The 2016 Chesapeake Executive Council Meeting is held at Blandy Experimental Farm in Boyce, Va., on Oct. 4, 2016. It was announced that Pennsylvania will get $28 million in the next year to combat agricultural pollution, with $12.7 million coming from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, $4 million from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and $11.8 coming mostly from shifts within the Pennsylvania budget. (Photo by Will Parson/Chesapeake Bay Program)

 

USAGE REQUEST INFORMATION

The Chesapeake Bay Program's photographic archive is available for media and non-commercial use at no charge.

 

To request permission, send an email briefly describing the proposed use to requests@chesapeakebay.net. Please do not attach jpegs. Instead, reference the corresponding Flickr URL of the image.

 

A photo credit mentioning the Chesapeake Bay Program is mandatory. The photograph may not be manipulated in any way or used in any way that suggests approval or endorsement of the Chesapeake Bay Program. Requestors should also respect the publicity rights of individuals photographed, and seek their consent if necessary.

Heligroup Fire's Bell 205A-1 lands to take on a crew of veteran wildland firefighter rappellers at the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) U.S. Forest Service (USFS) National Helicopter Rappel Program’s Rappel Academy at Salmon Air Base in Salmon, ID on Wednesday, May 14, 2014. From May 12, 2014, 72 veteran rappellers from all over the nation, 30 support staff, and three helicopters with flight crews attend the training at Salmon Air Base. Participants will rappel into the Perreau Creek area. The annual training is delivered in accordance with the National Rappel Operations Guide; strengthen leadership, teamwork, and communications within the rappel community, and produces quality aerial delivered firefighters for use in fire and aviation operations. The USDA Forest Service National Helicopter Rappel Program’s primary mission is initial attack. Rappel crews may be utilized for large fire support, all hazard incident operations, and resource management objectives. USDA Photo by Lance Cheung.

An Express's Bell 205A-1 Helicopter maintains altitude and position, both critical, for veteran wildland firefighter rappellers to descend to a landing zone in the Perreau Creek area, during the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), U.S. Forest Service (USFS) National Helicopter Rappel Program’s Rappel Academy at Salmon Air Base, in Salmon, Idaho, on Thursday, May 15, 2014. USDA Photo by Lance Cheung.

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