Public Loneliness: Yuri Gagarin's Circumlunar Flight

by Brennan, Gerald

  I got up, threw my jacket back on, and in standing realized I was still drunker than I thought, and my trousers were torn, and my shirt was untucked. “Just catching some fresh air.”

  In the moonlight I could tell he was angry and frustrated, the strange strangled feelings of a subordinate and minder who needs to dig his superior out of trouble. “Kamanin is looking for you, Yuri. And your wife’s upset. We need to get inside now, without anyone seeing.”

  And we circled the building and there were few enough people out front that it seemed safe, but when we came inside there were faces and voices. “Comrade Gagarin, what were you doing outside?” and “Who is that woman?” and “Look at him, he’s drunk!” And there were flashbulbs, flashbulbs, flashbulbs.

  And Kamanin glared, as angry as I’d seen him. Still, he did not talk to me but instead turned to the nearest photographer and said he needed the man’s film. And I think the man hesitated, but then Alexei reminded him that we were technically on Soviet territory, and the man said we would all be reading about this, and Kamanin asked if they wanted me to get in trouble when I got back to the Soviet Union. And my wife was watching, and I do believe she was less than pleased, and someone said: “I think he’s in trouble now!”

  Still, Kamanin and Alexei started taking the cameras from the photographers and pulling out the rolls of film and exposing them. And someone got upset and tried to hold back, but Kamanin whispered something in his ear, and sure enough, he gave up his film to be destroyed.

  And then came a loud voice, proclaiming that I was a fake and a phony. It was the German ambassador—and he was more than tipsy himself! He said: The face of the people cannot be drunk!

  And I could have hit him, but I did not want to press my luck. Even in my drunken state I knew there were things I could not do. I thought of Nelyubov. I did not want to end up like Nelyubov.

  I wobbled, looked around. The ambassador’s wife had disappeared.

  But the ambassador was there and I clapped him on the back. And perhaps I thought of Kamanin and how it’s best to smooth these things over. I think I told him that there had been a great misunderstanding, but drinking was the answer to our misunderstandings. And he said: Then come now, comrade, let’s have a drink. And we stumbled off, crunching spent flashbulbs under our shoes and nearly tripping over the rolls of exposed film that were strewn across the wooden floor like party streamers. And I asked why people wanted to take pictures on a night such as this? What was the point of such a night if you couldn’t forget what you wanted to forget?

  And I wanted to make nice with him and relax and bond with a drink. But I was still curious about where his wife had gone, and I believe I was looking about for her, and he said something to the effect of: What are you looking for, comrade? There is nowhere to go. And I was still somewhat mad at him for being such an ass, and I think I spotted his wife across the room, and it occurred to me that I did not even know her name…

  And…well, I would love to tell you how the evening ended. But it appears there is no more film in the cameras.

  •••

  And now we are coming to the end—the end of the planned mission, at least.

  I have eaten my lunch and my dinner. Our projections had me landing at a total mission time of 6 days, 18 hours, 24 minutes, give or take. And we are closing in on that.

  I am strapped in to my seat, ready to reenter if we catch the atmosphere and slow down enough. The instrument-aggregate compartment is still on, but I must be ready to cast it off at a moment’s notice. (The base of the descent module—its all-important heat shield—is covered by the instrument-aggregate compartment, and if we do not discard that once we’re in the upper atmosphere, then the craft may tumble, may reenter wrong-end first and burn up.)

  I can see the earth filling the porthole at last. All of you—dear people!—all of you are down there, and I have taken the most magnificent photograph in history, and I desperately want to show it to you, if only I get the chance.

  And outside the window I think I see the barest whiff of orange-pink plasma. I think I see it, but I cannot be sure, and perhaps I just think I see it because I’m hoping for it. And I wait for the furnace, I wait for the forge. But nothing happens.

  In these moments, I am excited, alive, pulse pounding, full of anticipation. But as it becomes clear that I am not reentering, that feeling falls away, and in its place comes a great weariness.

  Before long I am passing into orbital night. I crane my head and catch a sliver of the sunset. I do not know how many more I will see before I fall to earth. I have enough food and oxygen for a few more days. As for what will happen when that runs out—well, I don’t want to dwell on that.

  It is time to report in, at least.

  “Dawn-2, this is Cedar. Dawn-2, this is Cedar.”

  No response.

  “Dawn-2, this is Cedar. Dawn-2, this is Cedar.”

  “Cedar, this is Dawn-2.” Blondie. “You’re still up there.”

  “I am still up here. Temperature and pressure and electrical readings are all normal.”

  “The State Commission is convening to discuss your situation, Yura. They may make an announcement of some sort depending on how the discussion goes. But they are waiting on calculations from the ballistics center to determine your current trajectory. You’re in a highly elliptical orbit. We don’t know how soon it will decay.”

  “Understood, Blondie.”

  “I talked to Mishin before he left. He mentioned the possibility of turning on your interior camera and having you make a statement.”

  “Live or taped? Who is the audience?”

  “I’m not sure what they’re going to allow, Yura. We could do a public statement and a private one. But think about what you might want to say and who you might want to say it to. And we’ll see what they permit. Rest assured we won’t forget about you, Yura. We won’t rest until you’re home.”

  “I know, Blondie.”

  “How are you feeling?”

  “I am tired. I didn’t sleep well last night. I may need to take a rest period.”

  “Very well, Yura. We should have more answers for you on your next pass.”

  “If I’m awake.” I smile.

  “Very well, Yura, We won’t wake you unless it’s urgent.”

  “Very well. That is all for now. I do need to sleep, Blondie.”

  “Very well, Yura.”

  My body’s tired, but my mind is spinning through possibilities. I tell myself it’s time to relax. Everything that can be done has been done, for now. There is some peace in that, at least.

  For a few seconds, in fact, my tiredness falls away and I see everything exactly as it is. There is a sharpness and a sense of reality to everything. I scan the instruments. Everything is not as planned, but perhaps it is all as it’s supposed to be. And everything—every panel and switch in the old familiar cabin—suddenly looks clear and real and new.

  I look up at the perfect circle of the camera lens. Its cold dead gleam. The illumination source is of course turned off. Will they have me make a statement? What is there to say? I can think of a few things, but I will keep them to myself for now.

  I turn off the interior lights. I leave my makeshift porthole cover off. I feel confident that the sunlight won’t wake me when we pass out of earth’s shadow.

  What am I thinking? I’m sure you’d like to know. And I’m sure you’d prefer certain things, depending on your beliefs and biases. Am I cursing the system that put me up here? Angry that they sent me to the moon in what turned out to be a flawed spacecraft, all because they were hoping for one more feat of desperate glory? Or am I grateful to that system for at least giving me these experiences in the first place? Am I saying a prayer for my eventual safe return? Or do I trust that it will happen through some other means—orbital mechanics or atmospheric drag, or a final trick with the reentry thrusters? Perhaps I’m hoping for one more chance to speak to my wife, my children. You can imagine what you will. Far be it
from me to contradict you.

  Perhaps I’m thinking of Maresyev, and how I may be sacrificing more than him, at last. A cold comfort, but there is something like satisfaction in the thought. Perhaps I’m thinking of Hemingway’s old man. The old man went very far out to sea, and when he did, he caught the biggest fish he’d ever seen, but because he’d gone so far, he could not bring it home intact.

  I told Blondie that I needed rest, and it is true. I wanted someone to talk to; I wanted to tell my story, and to know what it means. (And I have been telling it! And I trust that you are hearing me, somehow.) But I’m getting tired of storytelling. And I still don’t know who you are. And a man needs privacy at certain times, after all.

  And it occurs to me: perhaps you already know how the story ends! Maybe you have read newspapers or seen television reports telling of my safe rescue by the Chilean Navy; perhaps you have seen a photograph of me climbing a ladder onto one of their ships, flashing my famous grin. And you may have already seen my photograph, the unimaginable beauty of the earth rising above the moon.

  Or perhaps I fell to earth too late. You may have seen footage of the state funeral, or possibly you watched the broadcast live: the somber crowds, the stern men carrying an urn with my ashes to a final resting place in the Kremlin wall with the heavy notes of Mozart’s “Requiem” playing all the while. Perhaps they told you the truth. But maybe they had no reason to do so. The spacecraft might have come down on Soviet soil, or tumbled on reentry and disintegrated. Perhaps they simply told you I died in an air crash.

  Then again, I might still be up here. That, too, is possible. Again, I don’t know who you are. Perhaps all of this is still happening.

  Outside I can see the field of stars moving as my spacecraft slowly turns. A tremendous amount of stars, an unimaginable number, stars like you have never seen them—bright and dim and near and far. And far below there is a dark hole, an arc of a circle where the earth is blocking them out. I can tell it is getting smaller, and farther and farther away by the minute.

  I start to count the countless stars.

  I fall asleep.

  I wake up.

  I fall asleep.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Many thanks to Francis French for his enthusiasm and support, and his commentary on the finished manuscript.

  Dr. Asif Siddiqi’s two-volume set Sputnik and the Soviet Space Challenge and The Soviet Space Race with Apollo remains the definitive English-language history of the Soviet space program, from its curious roots in postwar Germany to the bitter frustration of the failed N-1 program. It’s everything history should be: readable, authoritative, well-sourced, and insightful. Not only was his book an invaluable resource, but he also took the time to chat, to read my end product, and to correct a few of my mistakes. I’m very grateful for his feedback and corrections.

  Dr. Andrew Jenks’ Yuri Gagarin: The Cosmonaut who Couldn’t Stop Smiling is perhaps the most insightful English-language biography of Yuri Gagarin, as well as an excellent insight into his place in Soviet and Russian culture. Jenks takes a difficult task—digging deep to find the truth of a man who’s been shielded in a cocoon of myth—and succeeds admirably. It was the single most valuable source in helping me get a feel for Gagarin as a character; one of the anecdotes in the book even provided me with my title.

  Into that Silent Sea and In the Shadow of the Moon by Francis French and Colin Burgess did a wonderful job of portraying the relatively unknown personalities who flew Soviet rockets into space—it’s a great look at the people behind the posters.

  Two Sides of the Moon by Dave Scott and Alexey Leonov was a wonderful dual memoir. In particular, the latter’s reminisces about his friend and comrade were touching and moving, a strong reminder of the essential humanity of the man behind the myth. (He also discusses Gagarin’s love of The Old Man and the Sea in some detail. Though there are some issues with his recounting—he claims to have met Hemingway in Cuba some time after the author’s 1961 suicide—this still was an invaluable thematic contribution to my story.) He’s also the main source for the anecdote about Korolev’s description of his arrest and exile during Stalin’s Purges

  Boris Chertok’s Rockets and People was an excellent and candid memoir about the trials and tribulations of the Soviet Union’s rocket scientists. His description of their problem-solving methodology was interesting enough that I reproduced it here; his book also pointed me towards several important linguistic discrepancies between American and Russian/Soviet nomenclature. Lastly, it had some great insights into the interplay between Soviet strategic rocketry and space exploration.

  James Harford’s Korolev: How One Man Masterminded the Soviet Drive to Beat America to the Moon is a great biography of the towering and vital man at the center of it all.

  Soyuz: A Universal Spacecraft by Rex Hall and David Shayler contained some tremendously valuable information about the Soyuz and Zond spacecraft systems and interiors, as well as some very helpful technical descriptions of in-flight malfunctions on various missions.

  Kosmos: A Portrait of the Russian Space Age is a wonderful visual portrayal of the people and places that made the Soviet Union the world’s first spacefaring nation. Adam Bartos’ photographs are witty and wonderful, and Svetlana Boym’s accompanying essay gave valuable insights into the nation’s space culture.

  Starman: The Truth Behind the Legend of Yuri Gagarin by Jamie Doran and Piers Bizony is an entertaining and informative biography that captures the Gagarin magic while also getting at the contradictions that cropped up in his life in later years. While they perhaps give too much credence to some of the thinly-sourced stories about the Soviet space program, it’s still a worthwhile read.

  The Red Stuff – The True Story of the Russian Race for Space and the accompanying film documentary about Gagarin had some very valuable intervals with the early cosmonauts. It also had some great archival footage of the Soviet space program and the public spectacle which surrounded it.

  Yuri Gagarin’s own To the Stars is somewhat problematic as a historical source. But despite—and perhaps because of—the author’s outright lies and omissions, it still provides some valuable insights.

  The anonymous contributors to Wikipedia continue to ensure that their site remains a handy and generally reliable reference, but this story highlights some of the intriguing problems with the site, and with history and biography in general. (The Gagarin article claims he was a Christian, but relies on only one source; Jenks insists he wasn’t, but acknowledges the pervasiveness of this rumor in recent years. The disputes about such basic facts greatly contributed to my fascination with the Gagarin story, and left me charmed by a man who could remain so long in the public eye while remaining so maddeningly opaque.)

  Giano Cromley’s been an indispensable companion on the unending voyage that is independent publishing; it’d be a far lonelier journey without him, and I’m tremendously grateful for his feedback and support.

  Last, but first. To Octavia, Genesis, and the son whose name has been whittled down to a few intriguing possibilities: you are the most wonderful family a man could ask for, and I love you tremendously.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Mr. Brennan earned a B.S. in European History from the United States Military Academy at West Point and an M.S. in Journalism from Columbia University in New York. His writing has appeared in the Chicago Tribune, The Good Men Project, and Innerview Magazine; he's also been a frequent contributor and co-editor at Back to Print and The Deadline. He resides in Chicago.

  ABOUT TORTOISE BOOKS

  Slow and steady wins in the end, but the book industry often focuses on the fast-seller. Tortoise Books is dedicated to finding and promoting quality authors who haven’t yet found a niche in the marketplace—writers producing memorable and engaging works that will stand the test of time.

  Other titles include:

  Resistance

  The Last Good Halloween

  Ninety-Seven to Three

  Project G
enesis

  Zero Phase: Apollo 13 on the Moon