Public Loneliness: Yuri Gagarin's Circumlunar Flight Read online

  The solar panels deploy automatically, which then clears the way for the stellar alignment system to work. Everything unfolding in sequence like a mechanical flower.

  “Dawn-2, this is Cedar. Dawn-2, this is Cedar.” Now that we’ve launched, I’m no longer talking to Tyura-Tam but instead communicating via relay with the new control center. (Yevpatoriya, in the Crimea.)

  “Go ahead, Cedar.” Blondie’s voice! Just like before! I was delighted and now I’m overjoyed.

  “Dawn-2…Blondie…We have first cosmic velocity.” The spacecraft’s most important instruments are simple gauges, not unlike a car speedometer. Except if the needles are moving, something’s wrong. But everything’s steady. “All temperature and pressure readings are normal. Both panels are deployed. We are drawing electricity at 27 volts, 25 amps.”

  “Very good. Verify functioning of the ionic and attitude systems.”

  “Ionic system is working properly. I am oriented 20 degrees relative to the orbital path.” I give a quick pulse of the peroxide thrusters. Quick movements with the right-hand controller—a pulse back and forth in each axis. This is the first time I’ve actually controlled a spacecraft. It is sluggish with the Block-D stage attached. But working as expected. “DO system is responsive.”

  “Very good, Yura.” (Yura’s my nickname. No shorter, so you can’t really call it a diminutive. But I guess at 157 centimeters I’m diminutive enough on my own.) “The ballistics center is verifying your orbit.”

  “Very well. I am turning control of the craft over to the 100-K system so it can initiate a roll about the solar axis.” On East-1, the spacecraft oriented itself using optical sensors that found the horizon on every side. Here we also have star sensors and can direct the ship to point itself at the sun and the moon, so we know it knows where it is. But in this mode, the solar axis rotation, the system puts the spacecraft in a constant roll. (In the vacuum of space, of course, temperatures vary by hundreds of degrees depending on whether one is in the sun or in the shade. So if the craft isn’t rotating steadily, the hot side will get too hot, and the cold side will get too cold, and liquids in pipes and tanks may boil or freeze, depending on how well they’re insulated.)

  From Blondie: “Tracking your orbital parameters as follows. Perigee 191.3 kilometers. Apogee 221 kilometers. Inclination is 51 degrees, 44 minutes. Period is 88 minutes. All within normal limits. How’s the view, Yura?”

  “Not as good as you had, I’m sure!” (Blondie was the first man to leave his ship and float freely in space, back on Sunrise-2 with Pavel Belayev. In case you don’t know, it was a dangerous mission. A truly heroic flight, far more demanding than mine was.)

  “You’ll get to go outside up there someday, Yura.”

  “I’ll settle for the moon, Blondie.”

  He laughs. We both know he may get to go outside there, too. It’s looking like he’ll be leading the contingent of cosmonauts training for lunar landings. Assuming the N-1/L-3 combo comes together, he should be set to captain the first mission. And I do hope it happens. I’d love to land myself, but seeing such a good friend accomplish such a feat is surely the next best thing.

  Still, we’ve said enough over the open channel. My orbit has me skimming over the top of Mongolia and cutting through Manchuria, then back over our land. But that will be brief; the globe indicator shows I’ll soon be crossing the coast near Vladivostok. And we all know the C.I.A. has ships prowling the waters of the East Sea. They’ll know I’m up here, and depending on their monitoring on the other side of the globe, they may soon know where I’m going. Will they make it public before we do? Trumpet our triumph, and their shame? That’s the great uncontrollable factor in all this. We’ll find out soon enough.

  There is a lot to be done before this orbit is complete. We must make sure the buffer batteries are providing a constant electrical current, even when the ship and the solar panels are rotating, and even when we’re in earth’s shadow. And after this morning’s issues, we must carefully monitor the pressure in the Block-D stage. We don’t want to head for the moon if there are problems. Still I can’t help stealing glimpses of the wondrous view out my portholes. The sky looks overcast (or undercast for me, I suppose) and so I can’t tell exactly where I cross the coast. But the weather starts to break apart, and soon I can see the beautiful blue sea far below.

  (Back in 1961, Sergei Pavlovich penned an article under an assumed name for the newspaper Truth that said: “Soviet soil is now the shoreline of the universe.” A grandiose statement, perhaps; a triumph of socialist realist rhetoric. I don’t know that he’d have praised the system that fervently in private—as the old joke goes, there is no truth in Truth. Still, I think of it now, and how it’s coming true, and how I wish he were here to see it.)

  Now below I can see the shadowed outlines of the lingering clouds. Then Honshu, turning autumn brown. And before long I am heading into darkness. Since we can maneuver in orbit now, I’m tempted to reorient myself, but I don’t want to waste fuel on unnecessary maneuvers. Still I do crane my neck to see something I’ve been missing these last few years: the orbital sunset.

  And now, heading southeast across the Pacific, it is upon me. There is darkness above and below: two oceans, one infinitely vast. And out the window behind me, a few brilliant arcs of light, split by an atmospheric prism into reds and salmons and oranges. I watch until the sun winks out.

  •••

  It’s perhaps natural to think back to my first flight. Surely you want to know about that.

  Again, I spent that fateful April night in Sergei Pavlovich’s cottage. The bare room with the metal frame bed. Nothing special. After my flight it was invested with meaning. It became the room where everyone had to spend the night before their flight. In the absence of God, the state makes its own rituals.

  In the morning I woke and ate breakfast from tubes: meat and marmalade. Getting my stomach used to what I’d be eating up there. Then they drove me to the center. I remember Sergei Pavlovich’s wide face, exhausted but beaming. His dark intelligent eyes, so often sad, now were joyful. (He chose me first, before Khrushchev. And by then we knew that our fates and our names would be forever linked, even though his wouldn’t be public for a while.) I put on the blue pressure garment, and then the orange coverall that everyone remembers, and the white helmet with the red letters, freshly painted: C.C.C.P. I remember grinning at my reflection. Everything looked sharp.

  I headed out to a blue and white bus, customized with two wide seats. All around were technicians. But not all were there for a purpose. Some were just trying to see. And of course there were photographers. A small taste of things to come.

  Titov was on the bus already, sitting towards the back. Suited up like me. We’d only known for a few days that I would be flying and he would be backing me up. When I boarded, we exchanged pleasantries. Banalities. We were not positioned to be able to talk to one another after that. Was he hoping something would go wrong with my suit? I can forgive him for those dark unspoken thoughts. Everyone wants to be first. Everyone in our line of work, anyway.

  Then the long silent ride to the launch pad. Staring out at the railcars full of kerosene and the endless grassy plain. On a morning such as that, even the empty steppe looks beautiful and golden.

  I knew that, if everything went well, I would not have a lot to do. The spacecraft was designed to stay under automatic guidance for the duration of the flight. The Americans had recruited experienced test pilots for their astronaut corps, but we were plucked from the ranks of the air force. So every cosmonaut in those early days was a junior fighter pilot. And it occurred to someone that if we had manual controls we could do something wrong and bring the spacecraft down somewhere other than the planned spot, and possibly even miss the Soviet Union entirely. Make a mess of all the well-laid plans. Turn the state’s great triumph into a worldwide embarrassment.

  (This is how the thinking goes. The apparatus of fear: concerned not so much with doing things as with preventin
g things. It’s ugly and limited, like the scaffolding of the launch tower next to the rocket. These days I sometimes wonder if it will fall away in time. But it has been a necessary part of the journey.)

  Of course, the engineers knew we needed a manual option. They figured there would be a failure somewhere, and if it happened in the automatic system and I couldn’t fire the retrorockets, I’d be stuck up there in orbit until my food and water and oxygen ran out. Like Laika. An animal with no way to come home.

  So: a compromise. They designed the manual controls to be unlocked with a combination, which they would then read to me over the radio if something went wrong. Assuming the radio was working correctly.

  It was not my biggest concern, but it was there. A thought out of place like a pebble in my shoe.

  But as I waddled from the bus to the rocket, Sergei Pavlovich came up for some last words. He leaned in close so no one could hear. I expected fatherly advice, but he said: “Yura, we put an envelope with the code to the manual controls inside the craft. And…well, if you can’t reach it, the combination is 1-2-5. Got it?”

  “Got it. 1-2-5.” I smiled.

  “All right, my little falcon.” He patted my shoulder and lingered for a second. A lifetime of hopes and dreams in his tired eyes. Then he receded through the crowd, headed for the bunker.

  There was movement in the mass of people. Ivanovsky, anxious. (In case you don’t know, he was lead engineer for the ship, working under Feoktistov.) There was something he needed to say, a hot coal in his mouth he needed to spit out. He pulled me towards the ladder and cupped his hand over his mouth. Then he, too, whispered in my ear the three numbers.

  “Got it,” I said with a nod.

  “That’s it?” He seemed to think I was insufficiently grateful—which was understandable. He was risking his career to give me information that might save my life.

  “Korolev told me already.” I grinned. (You can’t discuss the foibles of the lowly with the mighty. But to do the opposite is all right.)

  He, too, smiled and gave me a pat on the shoulder.

  Then came the ladder to the elevator. Green steel. As solid as my confidence. I clambered up excitedly, with Ivanovsky backwards in front of me, waiting to offer a helping hand. The support arms clasped the rocket above us, creating the illusion of a soaring interior space. Awe-inspiring, like a metal cathedral.

  Up top, I turned to wave to everyone before I got into the elevator. I was surprised: so many smiles! Surely they all knew I would not be up there without all of them. But they seemed genuinely happy. Glad to be part of something so great. They knew my life was in their hands, and so my hopes were their hopes.

  Then the elevator door closed and I left them behind. Watched through the round window as they got smaller and the ground fell away. The start of my ascent.

  And then the capsule. Its gleaming circular hatch. The portal to my future. When I went in everything was the same as it had always been. But I knew when I came back through it everything would be strange and new.

  I put my hand on the rim of the hatch as I climbed in. Saw my gloved fingers against the capsule’s green skin. I remember thinking: this will be in space. Then burned by the atmosphere. Although I knew it, it did not seem possible. But nothing happens without change.

  Once on my back in the capsule I settled in. Shifted my weight around. By then it was all comfortable and familiar. The pale green interior. The little control boxes with their switches and dials. The globe.

  Ivanovsky was above me, his narrow diamond face upside-down in the circular hatch. He explained again the communications tests we needed to run. The blockhouse was Dawn-1, Kopashevo was Dawn-2, and Elizovo was Dawn-3. We’d run through it already, but it was a welcome refresher. And he kept talking, running through the last-minute issues. On a project this big everyone has thoughts and tips and suggestions that have been lingering in the corners of their mind like lint.

  And at last: Kamanin.

  He leaned in close. “I don’t know if I should tell you this, but the combination to the manual controls is 1-2-5.”

  “Got it,” I said, smiling so hard it hurt. A real, genuine smile. Gagarin, the laughing one. This is who I was, who I still am. This is what they expected from me. What they still expect. “Thank you, sir.”

  Ivanovsky stepped back up and armed my ejection seat.

  For a long time after they closed the hatch I was talking to Korolev in the blockhouse. Communicating and identifying issues. I gave them readings on temperature and humidity. They had to fix an issue with the hatch sensors. In the meantime they piped music in: songs about love. I was feeling good. Ready to start.

  As they resolved various issues, they announced the readiness. One-hour readiness. Ten-minute readiness. One-minute readiness.

  Then they said they were giving the signals to start the ignition and I heard valves opening beneath me and there was a rumbling and a growing noise. And in the middle of that I realized I was feeling the rocket rise.

  “Here we go!” I called out. (Or so they told me—I don’t remember it, but there it is on the tapes, my voice!) “Everything is going well, I am feeling fine, I’m in a cheerful mood, everything is normal.”

  From the ground: “We all wish you a good flight!” and I replied: “Goodbye! See you soon, dear friends!”

  And the rumble continued and there was an anxious voice in the headset as I rose: Korolev kept asking me how I was feeling—he was a nervous wreck!

  And it occurred to me, there on the rocket, that he hadn’t slept a wink. “I’m fine,” I yelled over the noise. “How are you feeling?”

  The G-forces were making it difficult to speak, and there was a bright light for the television camera in my face. But I made sure to keep telling them I was feeling fine.

  Then came a quiver beneath me as the four booster blocks separated. Nothing unexpected. And the nosecone, the protective covering, separated as planned three minutes in to the flight, and I peered through the porthole and saw dark blue sky and thought: It is real, it is happening. I will be the first.

  More G-forces. Old Number Seven was working exactly as it was supposed to, or so it seemed. And the central core fell off and there was another lurch and I rode the upper stage to orbit.

  Soon the vibrations and the G-forces were gone. Everything had fallen away. There were still the familiar noises of pumps and fans, and the same side panel with its switches and the front panel with its dials and globe, but it all felt different. Although I was strapped in tightly, I felt my arms floating up and my torso moving against the straps, almost as if I was hanging suspended.

  Just like that, I had gone from being just another earthbound mortal, to something else entirely: the first. Only nine short minutes had passed. And I’d done nothing. They’d strapped me in and I’d read the gauges and told them I was feeling good—but I’d done nothing! Another Ivan Ivanovich, a mannequin with a pulse. Surely you can understand why I felt a little awkward after that, a little humble, certainly, compared to someone like Alexey Maresyev, a real hero who was shot down by the Germans and lost both legs and went through the trouble of getting cleared to fly again so as to get back to killing Germans. How could I compare with that? (If you don’t like me and have nothing in common with me, perhaps you’re latching on to this fact, the fact that I did nothing, as proof that I’m not as impressive as all the posters and the parades would suggest!) Nine minutes. How often in your life has so much changed in so short a time?

  •••

  But I’m in a new spacecraft now. Manual controls. The chance to really fly. Which is the only thing I’ve wanted all along. (I have that in common with Maresyev, at least!)

  My path slashes across Chile and Argentina. In the orbital night I can see stars, stars, stars: clusters and clumps, and the bright swath of the galaxy. More stars than you have ever seen on the clearest darkest night on earth. And I’m headed northeast across the Atlantic for the final burn. Second cosmic velocity.

&
nbsp; “This is Cedar, this is Cedar.”

  Somewhere in the dark ocean, the relay ships are re-transmitting my signal to Yevpatoriya. I hear a slight delay, then Blondie’s voice, crackly: “Cedar, this is Dawn-2.”

  “Dawn-2, I am just about to head back into daylight.” I scan my panel. “Buffer batteries have been working as expected. Electrical current is still 25 amperes, 27 volts. Realigning with the 100-K.”

  Again, a transmission: crackly, inaudible. There are strange readings on the ionic control system. My globe indicator shows I’m off the South American coastline.

  “Dawn-2, I am passing through the Brazilian Magnetic Anomaly. Please repeat your transmission.”

  I hear something that sounds like: We are monitoring your telemetry. Everything is as expected.

  And now: orbital sunrise. I feast my eyes on it, for I may not see it on the way home.

  I am moving faster than the planet spins. So my sunrise is earth’s sunset. The effect is the same as before, only in reverse: I see arcs of color appear in the blackness and then swell as the sun fills the center. And then I must look away, for the sun, once it is up above the horizon, is even brighter than on earth, more brilliant than you can imagine, impossibly bright against the black sky. One of those incomparably strange things: to have full sunlight when the sky looks like night.

  And then I’m across the terminator and the Atlantic is beneath me, bright blue. Very few clouds today.

  “Yura, you have go-ahead for Block-D firing,” I hear. “Ten minutes to go.”

  This is the big new thing. What nobody has done before. If something had gone wrong they could have held me back.

  The big computers downstairs have been spinning. Vacuum tubes and lights and mechanical contraptions churning out calculations. Blondie reads out the expected values for the burn time and delta-v based on my orbit. The sun is rising higher in the black sky. There is still some static and I have him re-read the values before I’m content that I’ve heard them correctly.