Yuri Gagarin

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I bet Neil Armstrong never got that many medals.
Some dare call it
Conspiracy
Icon conspiracy.svg
What THEY don't want
you to know!
Sheeple wakers
Поехали!
—Gagarin on take-off[note 1]

Yuri Gagarin (Russian: Юрий Гагарин) (1934–1968) was a Soviet cosmonaut, the first human to fly in space and orbit the Earth. His flight was the second major achievement in a row for the Soviet space program, after the launch of the first satellite two years earlier. Thus, it was a huge publicity coup for the Soviet Union, both at home and abroad. Gagarin himself was nearly deified by Soviet propaganda, which got even worse after his sudden demise. Both his flight and his death became fodder for conspiracy theories and other fringe claims.

Gagarin, like all good Soviets, was a vocal atheist, although some doubt that he really was, and have even painted him as a kind of Russian saint.[1] Gagarin's feat was also the subject of at least one piece of Socialist Realist, anti-religious art.[2] The Orthodox Church continues a policy of claiming him as their own, and some have disputed that he ever made the widely quoted statement, "I see no God" on reaching orbit.[3] Such statements rely on second-hand testimony and rumor as well.

Gagarin was a charismatic figure, often smiling, and accommodating to his fans and audiences across the world. For example, when visiting Manchester in England, he was asked if he would put the roof back on his limousine, during his parade. He replied, "If all those people are getting wet to welcome me, surely the least I can do is get wet too!"

Aliens![edit]

A certain breed of people have claimed, through second- or third-hand sources, that Gagarin didn't see God up there, but aliens,[4] and others claim that he was abducted by them.[citation needed]

Spaceflight definitional controversy[edit]

There are also claims that his flight record was falsified.[5] Under the nitpicky rules of the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI), specifically Section 8, paragraph 2.15, item b, a flight doesn't count as "completed" if any crew member bails out of the spacecraft mid-flight. By this hyper-technical standard, Yuri Gagarin's historic 1961 jaunt into space—while undeniably the first human spaceflight—didn't qualify as a "completed flight" because he parachuted out before landing, as does all later Vostok missions.[6][7][8] Some space enthusiasts, clinging to this legalistic hairsplitting, argue that John Glenn's 1962 Friendship 7 mission, where he stayed cozy in his capsule all the way down, deserves the crown for the first to actually complete an orbit around Earth.[9] A 2019 Dorling Kindersley encyclopedia, Spaceflight: The Complete Story, even goes so far as to claim the U.S. was "actually ahead" in the Space Race after Alan Shepard’s Freedom 7 flight, since Shepard returned in his spacecraft—ignoring the inconvenient fact that Shepard’s suborbital hop didn’t even orbit.[10]

But let’s not get lost in bureaucratic rulebooks. The FAI, perhaps realizing their criteria were a bit pedantic, later shifted focus to the actual achievement: launching a human into orbit and getting them back alive, regardless of whether they landed in their capsule or parachuted like a badass. Gagarin’s records, including 108 minutes in orbit, the highest altitude in a solo spacecraft (still unbroken as of August 2022), and the heaviest mass lifted into orbit, stand unchallenged.[11][12] The FAI even created the Gagarin Medal to honor major milestones in human spaceflight, which kind of says it all. Globally, Gagarin is recognised as the first human to fly into space and orbit Earth—technicalities be damned.[13][14][15][16]

Death[edit]

Gagarin died in a MiG-15UTI together with flight instructor Vladimir Seryogin. The cause of the crash isn't entirely certain, and for many years the Soviet government said nothing about it; documents weren't declassified until 2003(!!). It's not that strange that various rumors surrounding Gagarin's death were widespread. They're often called "conspiracy theories", and technically some are, but when you're living in the USSR in the 1960s with such fun perks as the KGB, and the official accounts say pretty much nothing at all, it's not entirely fair to just dismiss them as crank nonsense similar to 9/11 truthers, JFK assassination theories, reptoids, etc.

Common rumors were that the pilots were drunk,[citation NOT needed] that the plane was hit by birds, and other mundane causes. More outlandish rumors were that Gagarin staged his death and had plastic surgery, that jealous Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev purposely crashed the plane to kill Gagarin, or that Gagarin committed suicide.[17][18]

The real cause of his death according to the KGB investigation declassified in 2003 is a combination of bad weather information and either a bird strike or possibly a sudden move to avoid a second aircraft (a witness saw a Su-15 very close).[19][20] There's also been speculation about an air vent that was left open, leading to possible oxygen deprivation.[21]

It's a hoax![edit]

The US has moon landing hoax theories, so Soviet Russia can't be behind! It's just got to have Yuri Gagarin space flight hoax theories![22][23][24]

External links[edit]

Notes[edit]

  1. Translated to English: Let's go!, or Here we go!

References[edit]

  1. Gagarin as Christ
  2. A Priest Contemplates Gagarin's Feat
  3. Yuri Gagarin: the first Orthodox in Space by Rev. Metropolitan of Nafpaktos Hierotheos Vlachos
  4. UFO enthusiasts peddling rumors about Gagarin
  5. Gagarin's Falsified Flight Record
  6. Williams, Matthew S. (28 April 2022). "Ad Astra: The past, present, and future of spacecraft". interestingengineering.com. Retrieved 5 August 2022.
  7. "Vostok/Mercury". abyss.uoregon.edu. Retrieved 5 August 2022.
  8. "FAI Sporting Code Section 8 – Astronautics (2009 Edition)" (PDF). Fédération Aéronautique Internationale. Fédération Aéronautique Internationale. Archived from the original (PDF) on 4 October 2024. Retrieved 2 November 2024.
  9. Burgess, Colin (2009). The first Soviet cosmonaut team : their lives, legacy, and historical impact. Berlin: Springer. p. xxiii. ISBN 978-0387848235.
  10. Sparrow, Giles (2019). Spaceflight : the complete story, from Sputnik to Curiosity (Second [American] ed.). New York: Dorling Kindersley Ltd. p. 82. ISBN 978-1465479655.
  11. "Yuri Alexeevitch Gagarine (URS) (9327) | World Air Sports Federation". www.fai.org. 10 October 2017. Archived from the original on 26 August 2022. Retrieved 26 August 2022.
  12. "Space Marks Accorded To Gagarin and Shepard". The New York Times. 23 July 1961. p. 35.
  13. "Why Yuri Gagarin Remains the First Man in Space, Even Though He Did Not Land Inside His Spacecraft". airandspace.si.edu. Retrieved 5 August 2022.
  14. Tillman, Nola Taylor (12 October 2018). "Yuri Gagarin: First Man in Space". Space.com. Retrieved 5 August 2022.
  15. "'Let's go!' – FAI celebrates 60th Anniversary of Gagarin's space flight | World Air Sports Federation". www.fai.org. 22 March 2021. Retrieved 5 August 2022.
  16. "Yuri Gagarin: Who was the first person in space? - BBC Newsround". Retrieved 5 August 2022.
  17. Dmtry Sudakov,"Gagarin's death: Obvious mystery", Pravda, 28 March 2013/
  18. http://io9.com/5791437/what-really-happened-to-cosmonaut-vladimir-komarov-who-died-crashing-to-earth-in-1967
  19. KGB held ground staff to blame for Gagarin's death
  20. Death of Yuri Gagarin demystified 40 years on
  21. Inquiry promises to solve Gagarin death riddle
  22. (Russians What?) The Yuri Gagarin Hoax
  23. Soviet Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin was never in Space
  24. Yuri Gagarin, A Cosmic Lie, on the Flat Earth Society website