Table Of Content^V.e£tern evaluation of man’s greatest exploit and of
amazing achievements in the exploration of spade.
32 PA6ES OF ILLUSTRATIONS /'
Panther Books proudly present the first inde
pendent Western evaluation of the Russian space
programme and the flight of Major Yuri Gagarin
—the first man into space. This is not simply
Gagarin’s life story; it is the history of the whole
Soviet effort in this field, with its problems, its
successes and its failures.
FOR THE FIRST TIME:
# Gagarin himself, in the first private
interview that the Russians allowed with
Western journalists, describes his feel
ings during his historic 108-minute orbit
of the world.
# The answers to the questions:
Why are the Russians ahead ?
What will they do next ?
What is their national policy on space
research ?
Why is the West behind ?
# Russian scientists give their opinion of
the U.S. efforts, comparing them with
their own.
# Russian biologists depict fully the extra
ordinary training of animals and men
for space flight.
# Details are given of the construction and
equipment of their space-ships, together
with an account of the experiments
which led up to the final designs and the
first prototype of a manned rocket.
In this fascinating and important book, the
authors have uncovered and presented the facts
behind the most momentous event in history.
WILFRED BURCHETT
and ANTHONY PURDY
COSMONAUT YU R I
G A G A R I N
FIRST M A N IN SPACE
With 32 pages of
half-tone illustrations
A PANTHER BOOK
Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin
First Man in Space
A Panther Book
First published in Panther Books
August, 1961
Copyright © Wilfred Burchett and
Anthony Purdy 1961
Printed in Great Britain by Cox and Wyman Ltd.,
London, Reading and Fakenham, and published
by Hamilton & Co. {Stafford), Ltd.,
108 Brompton Road, London, S.W.3
CONTENTS
Introduction : Interview with Professor Fyodorov,
one of the leading scientists in charge
of the Soviet Space Programme 7
1 Welcome Home ii
2 Take -off 21
3 U.S. v. U.S.S.R. 29
4 The First Russian Rocketeer 34
5 Rockets in War and the Early Sputniks 40
6 Tracking —New Chain of Sky -spies 54
7 Space -dogs , their School and Training ; the
Historic Flight of Strelka and Belka 65
8 Gagarin 87
9 Gagarin : the Training of a Cosmonaut ioo
10 “108 Minutes ” no
11 Gagarin : the First Interview with Western
Journalists 118
12 The Moon Next ? 124
13 The Robot Brains that Think 135
14 Mars ? Theories and Probabilities of Life on
the Planet 140
15 Venus Probe 155
16 Science Fiction in Russia 167
17 Profit and Loss 173
About the Authors 183
Index 185
INTRODUCTION
N April 12, 1961, Yuri Gagarin crashed through a barrier
that has kept Man imprisoned since the day when he
first learned to walk upright. He is the hero for his courage
in risking the unimaginable dangers of the greatest unknown
except death itself. But Gagarin’s achievement was the climax
of stupendous effort by what is perhaps the greatest team of
scientists and engineers ever to pursue one purpose. In back
ing from their government, in time, manpower, money and
material, their resources were limitless. But still they could
have failed. That they did not is apparent; but why they did
not, and how they actually performed the feat of putting a man
into space . . . that is a subject to provoke argument for many
years to come.
Even with all the facts it would be impossible to give a com
plete answer. But facts about the Soviet space programme are
rare—or, at least, not as abundant as some hard-pressed West
ern scientists would like. Wilfred Burchett and Anthony Purdy
set out to find every fact they could in order to fill in some of
the gaps and answer some of the questions. Burchett has
travelled thousands of miles through the Soviet Union, visited
scores of laboratories, factories, observatories, universities and
research stations. Together they interviewed scores of scientists
and space-workers, including Gagarin himself, and read hundreds
of thousands of words, from rocket-history to science fiction.
7
8 INTRODUCTION
The Russians were courteous, interested, and helpful, within
their obvious limits. Here is an account of their first interview,
with one of the leading scientists in charge of the space pro
gramme, Professor Eugene Fyodorov, who contributed as much
as any man to the making of Yuri Gagarin’s 108 historic minutes.
We climbed a wide, wrought-ironwork staircase laid out
with thick-pile red, white and blue carpet to the first-floor
office of Academician Fyodorov. His secretary, a trim, attrac
tive, fair-haired girl, dealt with a stream of telephone calls at
her crowded desk while the minutes ticked by to three o’clock.
Precisely at three she led us into the Academician’s room
next door. Fyodorov is a bulky man, with pale blue eyes that
are quick to smile, a formidable jaw and forehead and large,
capable hands. He looked the picture of an executive scientist;
calm, efficient, immensely knowledgeable and cultured. With
bis interpreter and ours, we sat at a long highly polished table
under a huge map of the world, with five red flags pinned in
the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans and the Black Sea. “You see,”
he joked, “our secret rocket stations.”
On another wall was a large-scale geophysical map of
Russia; on the third, a portrait of Lenin.
“Now,” he said, “we can discuss your questions. Firstly,
Gagarin; the results of his flight came fully up to our expecta
tions. The chief point, I think, that we established was that in
prolonged weightlessness there are no ill effects, no un
pleasantness that we did not know about. He worked very
well during this period and did everything demanded of him.
I am not an engineer, but I know that as a result of the space-
shot we were able to improve and elaborate the cabin.”
What was his opinion of the U.S. success in putting a man
into a ballistic rocket? He shrugged. “Firstly, we are very
pleased that they have been able to do this; it represents a new
stage in research and a success for American science. We by
passed it because, frankly, we considered that this up-and-down
INTRODUCTION
9
flight is much simpler than putting a man into orbit, and we
were more concerned with such problems as re-entry and
descent.
“We carried out these up-and-down flights before—not with
a man, but with animals, mice and so on, saving the bigger-
sized rockets for bigger experiments. As for the Americans
claiming to have produced more scientific data from such a
flight, I cannot say. I have not seen their data yet. I don’t see
the point of the claim concerning the manual control by Com
mander Shepard; Gagarin was able to control his space-ship
himself if necessary, but it was not.”
He discussed a claim in the London magazine, New Scien
tist that “absolutely no scientific purpose had been achieved
by the flight of Major Gagarin.” With a trace of a smile, he
commented: “It is the same with any achievement. Once it
has been done, there are always people who say something else
should have been done. If Major Gagarin had landed on the
Moon, someone would have said: ‘There’s nothing special
about that,’ and would have suggested that he should have
gone on to some other planet.
“We consider that this first flight was essential. Without
this first step, others would not be possible.”
What have the Russians learned about cosmic radiation
following the recent flights? “Very much. A great deal is
known in regard to radiation screening with metal jackets and
so on. We know enough, for instance, for a flight to the Moon
to be possible with passengers.”
For such a flight, which did he consider more important
scientifically—a manned or robot landing first? “Much fuller
results,” he said, “would be achieved by the flight of man. In
cosmic research, perhaps in this more than any other field, we
can be faced with unexpected circumstances. A man can decide
on the spot what to do, whereas with instruments, they per
form only a pre-planned programme which cannot take the
unexpected into account.
