Starman

by Jamie Doran

  Unfortunately, getting at the food was more of a problem than obtaining drink. ‘There were no waitresses to serve us. So it was just like communism. You can sniff it and look at it, but you can’t touch it or eat it. Furthermore, Khrushchev was shouting all the time that true universal communism was just on the horizon.’

  Indeed, a triumphant Nikita Khrushchev was by now well into one of his noisy table-thumping routines. Cosmonaut Alexei Leonov recalls the mood of optimism. ‘He announced that our generation was going to live in true communism. We were all hugging, applauding, screaming “Hooray!” And we really believed him, because at that time the success of our country was obvious to the whole world. It was only much later, when we grew up and learned a little about economic realities, that we realized Khrushchev’s announcement was a little premature.’

  By the end of April Gagarin’s arduous routine of foreign travel was under way, with a trip to the ‘democratic’ satellite socialist countries of Czechoslovakia and Bulgaria, then on to Finland. In June 1961 he arrived back in Moscow for some much-needed leave with Valya and the children, although he took the time to be interviewed by yet more journalists, ferried from place to place as always by his driver Fyodor Dyemchuk. The Indian writer Khwaja Ahmad Abbas observed of Gagarin:

  He was widely hailed as the Man of the Moment, but when I came face-to-face with him the meeting began with an anticlimax. The door opened and the world’s most publicized man stepped in, but I failed to recognize him. Even while shaking hands with him I was uncertain that this slightly built young man could be the great Hero of the Space Age. Even in his smart uniform he looked like a junior officer coming in as an advance guard to announce the real hero.11

  As usual, Gagarin’s charm quickly won the day and Abbas’s approach soon became more complimentary. The journalist may have felt an initial twitch of disappointment, but the First Cosmonaut’s essential normality was the whole point. If Khrushchev and his advisors had wanted a super-hero to represent the Soviet Union in space, they would have chosen another candidate.

  The British journalists Wilfred Burchett and Anthony Purdy met Gagarin at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club in Moscow on June 9, and were instantly impressed by his enthusiasm, his firm handshake and confident responses to their questions. They told him they were writing a book about his exploits, and he flattered them by saying that if their determination as authors was anything to go by, ‘The next person in space should be a writer.’

  The conversation soon turned to the exploits of NASA. Gagarin made gentle, but pointed, fun of the Mercury project, which had achieved only its first tentative 15-minute sub-orbital hop on May 5, with astronaut Alan Shepard aboard. Burchett and Purdy suggested that the American capsule incorporated more sophisticated attitude (orientation) controllers, thrusters and navigation systems, so that Shepard could genuinely pilot the machine to a greater extent than a cosmonaut could fly a Vostok. This was quite true, but Gagarin evaded the issue by concentrating on the short duration of the Mercury mission. ‘How much driving can you get done in five minutes?’ he challenged. ‘And what would be the point of manual control? I could have guided Vostok, had I wanted to. There was a dual-control, but the manual option was not necessary or important.’ For a pilot this was like saying that his job – his essential skill – was completely irrelevant, but at the time Gagarin could hardly have said anything different.12

  The journalists changed tack and suggested that Mercury’s cabin equipment was better than Vostok’s. Again, this was largely true. Gagarin countered, ‘It’s difficult to compare them. Vostok’s cabin is very big, and the thrust of its engines much greater. We went higher and faster for a much longer time.’

  Burchett and Purdy asked him which had been the worst moment during his flight? ‘The re-entry,’ he replied without hesitation – then collected his thoughts for a moment and efficiently covered his tracks. ‘But “worst” is a comparative word. There wasn’t really any particular bad moment. Everything worked, everything was organized properly, nothing went wrong. It was a walk, really.’

  Not surprisingly, Burchett and Purdy missed the nuance. Phil Clarke, a modern British expert on Russian space history, suggests that if the story of Vostok’s retro-pack separation failure had leaked out in 1961, it would have caused a sensation, but Gagarin remained consistently skilful at listening to his own answers and guarding against errors.

  As always, the most sensitive issue was his method of landing. In the wake of his homecoming celebrations in Moscow, Gagarin was pressed for answers by suspicious foreign journalists. On April 17 the London Times correspondent wrote:

  No details have been given about the method of landing. Asked point-blank about this at the crowded press conference, Major Gagarin, more hesitantly than in his other replies, skated over the questions with his answer: ‘Many techniques of landing have been developed in our country. One of them is the parachute technique. In this flight we employed the system where the pilot is in the cabin.’ The pictures published in the press here also give little idea of the spaceship’s structure, but some light was thrown on Major Gagarin’s pride in it when he was seen to wince at the use of the word ‘plane’ at the press conference.

  The sports official Ivan Borisenko flew to Paris in July 1961 to negotiate far more searching questions thrown at him by the International Astronautical Federation (IAF) about the altitude record he was claiming on behalf of Vostok. The IAF Director-General asked Borisenko’s delegation outright, ‘Where was the pilot on return, in relation to the space vehicle?’ Borisenko bluffed shamelessly. ‘Ask the Americans if they believe these records for Gagarin were actually achieved! All the people of the world have already endorsed Gagarin’s flight and have accepted it as fact.’13

  The wrangling went on for several hours, but eventually the IAF caved in without pressing the Soviets for clearer evidence. From now on Borisenko could wave his newly minted IAF certification in front of sceptics as ‘proof’ that Gagarin had landed in his ship and rightfully claimed the altitude record.

  On July 11, 1961 Gagarin and his escorts flew to London on a Tupolev-104 Aeroflot airliner. The left-leaning London newspaper the Daily Mirror heralded his arrival with a glowing tribute, accompanied by a bitter critique of the lacklustre official reception. Today the piece can be read as an eerie portent of things to come, as the Conservative government of the time began to collapse under the pressure of 1960s’ modernity:

  Gagarin is a brave man, the symbol of one of the greatest scientific feats ever achieved. Yesterday, after two days of stuffed-shirt panic over the correct procedure, the British government at last figured out how they would welcome this world-wide hero. And who are they sending to greet him in the name of the entire British people? Not the Prime Minister, Mr Macmillan. Not the Foreign Secretary, Lord Home. Not even the Minister of Science, Lord Hailsham. Britain’s spokesman on this unique occasion will be an unknown civil servant, Mr Francis Fearon Turnbull, CBE, aged fifty-six. The reason given . . . is that Gagarin is not a Head of State.

  Harold Macmillan did eventually meet Gagarin (though not at the airport) and described him as ‘a delightful fellow’. In fact, Gagarin’s visit to Britain had been sponsored largely by the Foundry Workers’ Union rather than the government, but the ordinary citizens of Britain turned out in force to welcome him. The Times reported that he ‘received a welcome that sometimes bordered on hysteria. Cheering crowds lined the route into London all the way from the airport.’ He arrived by motorcade into the vast Earl’s Court Exhibition Centre in West London to address a crowd of students, then gave a press conference in front of 2,000 journalists from Britain and around the world. Quickly the establishment revised its plans for him. He was summoned to the Admiralty, the Air Ministry and the Royal Society, and finally to Buckingham Palace to meet the Queen. Yaroslav Golovanov, the approved journalist ever in attendance, says that an extra day had to be found in Gagarin’s schedule to make room for this meeting, which raises the fascinating possibil
ity that the royal reception was not planned in advance. Rather, it was a hurried response to circumstances. The Times seemed to confirm this on July 12, with its report that ‘Because of the Palace invitation, Major Gagarin will now return home on Saturday, instead of on Friday as originally planned.’

  During an informal luncheon encounter on July 15, the Queen was gracious, particularly when Gagarin ran into the perennial problem of an unversed visitor in the Palace at mealtimes: how to handle the vast array of cutlery. Golovanov recalls the scene. ‘He said, “Your Highness, you know this is the first time I’ve had breakfast with the Queen of Great Britain, and it’s very difficult to know which cutlery to use.” He smiled, and the Queen didn’t hold back. She said, “You know, I was born in this palace, but I still get mixed up.” After that, the meeting went very warmly and sincerely.’

  The Queen asked Gagarin all kinds of questions – simple human curiosity breaking through the pomp, as always – and at one point he said tactfully, ‘Maybe you have me mixed up with someone else? I’m sure there are many other pilots like me in your own Royal Air Force.’ In all, the First Cosmonaut was turning out to be an extraordinary asset to Soviet diplomacy, but, as he confessed to Golovanov in a quiet moment, the strain of playing the perfect ambassador was beginning to wear him down. ‘A lot of articles are being written about the flight. Everyone is writing about me, and it makes me uncomfortable because they’re making me out to be some kind of superhero. In fact, like everyone else, I’ve made mistakes. I have weaknesses. They shouldn’t idealize people. It’s embarrassing to be made to seem like such a good, sweet little boy. It’s enough to make one sick.’

  When he grew weary of the adulation at his news conferences, one of Gagarin’s favourite ploys was to remind his listeners that his Hero of the Soviet Union medal was stamped with the number 11,175. ‘That means 11,174 people accomplished something worthwhile before me. I disagree with any division of people into ordinary mortals or celebrities. I’m still an ordinary mortal. I haven’t changed.’ (Once, in Moscow, he laughed happily when he overheard a woman in the crowd say, ‘Oh, look! He’s cut himself shaving.’)

  On August 5 Gagarin’s entourage arrived in Canada, at the invitation of the financier Cyrus Eaton. From Halifax they travelled 200 kilometres to Pugwash, Nova Scotia, where Eaton kept a substantial residence. He and the philosopher Bertrand Russell had convened a famous nuclear disarmament seminar known as the ‘Pugwash Conference’ at this house back in 1957. Not surprisingly, Moscow was delighted to receive an invitation for Gagarin to visit, but Eaton’s star guest quickly became distracted. Late on the evening of August 8 he learned that Gherman Titov had gone into orbit. He asked if he could send a congratulatory telegram, and this was arranged for him by Nikolai Kamanin. Titov heard Gagarin’s message during his sixth orbit, relayed to him by ground controllers. Cyrus Eaton politely eased a foreshortening of the festivities so that Gagarin and his colleagues could set off back to Russia immediately. All of a sudden the Russian delegation felt very cut off from important events at home. Kamanin remarked, ‘While we’re busy making speeches, the Americans are preparing spacecraft. We have to move ahead.’

  Gagarin’s tour resumed within three weeks. His arrival in Cuba on August 24 was a politically charged event, an important gesture of Soviet solidarity with Fidel Castro’s two-year-old regime. Gagarin and Kamanin stepped off the plane into sweltering heat, dressed in dazzling white summer uniforms. Seen from their end of the political telescope, the Bay of Pigs had been a triumph, not a defeat. Castro’s aides happily told Gagarin, ‘The “beards” repelled the enemy,’ and Gagarin replied, ‘People who believe deeply in the rightfulness of their cause can never be brought to their knees.’ As so often, he knew exactly what to say without prompting. At a mass public rally he declared, ‘All two hundred and twenty million of us Soviet people are the true and devoted friends of Cuba!’14

  By 1967, the last year of his life, Gagarin would not be so quick to praise the Soviet regime, or to take its every triumphant proclamation so much on trust.

  8

  THE SPACE RACE

  Yuri Gagarin’s short journey through space was one of the most important events of the twentieth century – not for Russia, but for America, where an industrial shake-up of colossal proportions was unleashed in response. It was not just Velcro fabric and the non-stick frying pan that emerged as a result of the Space Race, but the entire fabric of modern technology. Microchips were developed because 1950s’ circuitry was not small enough to fit inside rockets and missiles. The Internet emerged from an attack-proof communications network laid down by ARPA, the Advanced Research Projects Agency (a pre-NASA government department that planned, among other things, for America’s future in space). Modern diagnostic medicine owes an incalculable debt to the research conducted by the space doctors. The development of the global communications industry – for so long a science-fiction dream – happened with incredible speed after the invention of satellites. In all likelihood these technologies would have come along of their own accord, but probably nothing like as fast as they did. And all because a farmboy from Smolensk laid down a challenge to the most powerful nation on earth.

  Dr John Logsdon, who heads the Space Policy Institute in Washington, DC, and has advised a succession of Presidents, explains the impact of Gagarin’s flight on the American psyche. ‘It was a sudden rebalancing of our power relationship with the Soviet Union, because of the clear demonstration that – if they wanted to – they could send a nuclear warhead across intercontinental distances, right into the heart of “Fortress America”. There was an uproar: how did we get beaten by this supposedly backward country?’

  President Kennedy had not taken space particularly seriously until now, but on the evening of April 14, 1961 he was deeply agitated at the global response to Gagarin’s flight. He paced his office at the White House, asking his advisors, ‘What can we do? How can we catch up?’ Kennedy’s science advisor Jerome Wiesner cautiously suggested a three-month study period to assess the situation, but the President wanted a more urgent response. ‘If somebody can just tell me how to catch up. Let’s find somebody – anybody. I don’t care if it’s the janitor over there, if he knows how.’ He deliberately made these remarks within earshot of Hugh Sidey, a senior journalist from Life magazine. All of a sudden the President wanted to be seen as an advocate for space.1

  Three days later Kennedy suffered another, more serious defeat. A 1,300-strong force of exiled Cubans, supported by the CIA, landed at the ‘Bay of Pigs’ in Cuba, with the intention of destroying Fidel Castro’s communist regime. Kennedy had personally approved the scheme, but Castro’s troops learned of the operation well ahead of time and were waiting on the beaches. The raid was a total disaster, because the CIA failed to deliver the promised support. Contrary to all expectations, the ‘subjugated’ population of Cuba showed absolutely no desire to participate in Castro’s overthrow. To the CIA’s lasting embarrassment, no attempt was made to rescue the invaders.

  The Kennedy administration seemed to be faltering in its first 100 days, the traditional ‘honeymoon’ period during which a new president is supposed to shake things up and make his mark. Kennedy immediately turned to space as a means of reviving his credibility. In a pivotal memo of April 20, he asked Vice-President Lyndon Johnson to prepare a thorough survey of America’s rocket effort:2

  1. Do we have a chance of beating the Soviets by putting a laboratory in space, or by a trip around the moon, or by a rocket to land on the moon, or by a rocket to go to the moon and back with a man? Is there any other space program which promises dramatic results in which we could win?

  2. How much additional would it cost?

  3. Are we working 24 hours a day on existing programs, and if not, why not? If not, will you make recommendations to me as to how work can be speeded up.

  4. In building large boosters should we put our emphasis on nuclear, chemical or liquid fuel, or a combination of these three?

 
5. Are we making maximum effort? Are we achieving necessary results?

  This single-page document can be read either as one of the most sensational directives of the twentieth century or as a hastily dictated panic response to a bad week at the White House, but without doubt it laid the foundations for the largest technological endeavour since the wartime ‘Manhattan’ development of the atomic bomb: the Apollo lunar landing project.

  NASA’s chief administrator James Webb certainly believed that the Soviets could beat America at the short-term goals outlined in Kennedy’s famous memo, such as orbital rendezvous and simple space stations. He suggested a landing on the moon as a longer-range goal, requiring such a tremendous input of resources and technical development that, in all likelihood, the Soviets could not match it. Webb persuaded Kennedy and Johnson to take the longer view, because the short-term battle for rocket supremacy was already lost.3

  A final decision hinged on NASA literally getting their manned space programme off the ground. On May 5, just twenty-three days after Gagarin had flown, US astronaut Alan Shepard was launched atop a small Redstone booster. His flight was not a full orbit, merely a ballistic ‘hop’ of fifteen minutes’ duration. In contrast to Vostok’s orbital velocity of 25,000 kmph, Shepard’s Mercury achieved only 8,300 kmph. Vostok girdled the globe, while the Mercury splashed down into the Atlantic just 510 kilometres from its launch site. But this cannonball flight was enough to prove NASA’s basic capabilities.