March 27, 1968 – Gagarin dies in jet crash

Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin was killed in a jet crash on March 27th, 1968. He was only 34 years old. Gagarin was the first person to space. He was born March 9th, 1934 in the village of Klushino, Russia. Gagarin was the first person to reach space which he did on 12 April 1961. Gagarin died in a jet-plane accident March 27, 1968.

Wikipedia says:

“Gagarin then became deputy training director of Star City. At the same time, he began to requalify as a fighter pilot. On 27 March 1968, he and his instructor died in a MiG-15UTI on a routine training flight near Kirzhach. It is not certain what caused the crash, but a 1986 inquest suggests that the turbulence from a Su-11 ‘Fishpot-C’ interceptor using its afterburners may have caused Gagarin’s plane to go out of control. Weather conditions were also poor, which may have contributed to the inability of Gagarin and the instructor to correct before they crashed.”

Quote by Yuri Gagarin:

“The path of a cosmonaut is not an easy, triumphant march to glory. You have to get to know the meaning not just of joy but also of grief, before being allowed in the spacecraft cabin.”
- Quoted in Into That Silent Sea (p. 16), speaking of fellow cosmonaut’s Valentin Bondarenko fiery death (March 23, 1961) in a simulator. Gagarin spent the final hours of Bondarenko’s beside his bed after the accident before he died.

March 25, 1928 – Astronaut James “Jim” Lovell is born

Jim Lovell (James Arthur Lovell, Jr.) was born in Cleveland, Ohio, March 25, 1928.  Lovell’s first spaceflight was aboard Gemini 7 (December 4-18 1965), spending two weeks in space. Gemini 7 also performed the first space rendevouz with Gemini 6A.  Lovell made his second spacefaring trip aboard Gemini 12 as commander in November 1966 (Nov 11-15). Thee two Gemini missions qualified Lovell to be the human to have spent the most time into space at the time.

His first Apollo mission was aboard Apollo 8 in December 1968 (Dec 21-27). The crew (Borman, Anders and Lovell) became the first humans to orbit the Moon.

Originally scheduled to command Apollo 14, Lovell’s crew was bumped up to Apollo 13. This famous mission, launched on April 11, 1970 with fellow crew members Fred Haise and Jack Swigert aboard, almost became a tragic footnote in United States spaceflight history when an oxygen tank exploded on April 13th while the spacecraft was on the way to the Moon.  Lovell announced to Houston mission control, “Houston, we’ve had a problem.” The story of how NASA ad Lovell’s crew successfully brought the module home safely is powerfully told in the popular film Apollo 13.

Lovell’s version of the Apollo 13 near-tragic mission is told in his book, Lost Moon. He would never step foot on to the Moon personally though he was one of the most experienced spacefarers in the 1960s and 1970s.

Image credit: NASA

March 24, 1969 – NASA announces crew selection for Apollo 11

On March 24, 1969 NASA announced its selection for the crew to fly Apollo 11 to the Moon, launching in less than four months, on July 16, 1969. It carried Commander Neil Alden Armstrong, Command Module Pilot Michael Collins and Lunar Module Pilot Edwin Eugene ‘Buzz’ Aldrin, Jr.

Neil Armstrong became the first man to walk on the Moon on July 20, 1969.

L/R: Armstrong, Collins and Aldrin
Image credit: NASA

March 23, 1961 – Cosmonaut dies in fiery simulator in Moscow

Russian cosmonaut Valentin Bondarenko (1937 – 1961) died in a simulator that was filled with pure oxygen on March 23, 1961. His simulator environment caught fire after he carelessly discarded an alcohol cotton ball onto an electric hot plate. Fellow cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin spent many hours at Bondarenko’s bedside before he died of 3rd degree burns.

Wikipedia says:

“The circumstances of Bondarenko’s death were similar to those befalling the crew of the Apollo 1 and there has been much speculation that if the Soviets had been open about the tragedy NASA may have been alerted to the hazardous design of the early Apollo command module and made changes which could have prevented the deaths of the three Apollo 1 crewmembers in 1967. However, by then the lethal hazards of a 100% oxygen environment had been thoroughly described in American scientific publications.”

Quote by Yuri Gagarin:

“The path of a cosmonaut is not an easy, triumphant march to glory. You have to get to know the meaning not just of joy but also of grief, before being allowed in the spacecraft cabin.”
- Quoted in Into That Silent Sea (p. 16), speaking of fellow cosmonaut’s Valentin Bondarenko fiery death in a spacecraft test.

March 23, 1912 – Wernher von Braun is born

Wernher von Braun, one of the leading figures in rocket technology, was born on March 23, 1912. He started his career as a German scientist. He later came to the United States and was a pivotal leader of rocket technology in the early space age for NASA. He died June 16, 1977.

Quote from TIME Magazine about von Braun:

“Von Braun, 45, personifies man’s drive to rise above the planet. Von Braun, in fact, has only one interest, the conquest of space, which he calls man’s greatest adventure.“

Wikipedia says:

“The German scientist, who was pivotal in Germany’s pre-war rocket development program and was responsible for the design and realization of the V-2 combat rocket during World War II, entered the United States at the end of the war through the then-secret Operation Paperclip.”

March 18, 1965 – first human spacewalk by a Russian

Russian cosmonaut Alexey Arkhipovich Leonov became the first person to perform a spacewalk, also known as an EVA, on March 18, 1965 aboard Voskhod 2. He was born May 30, 1934.

According to Wikipedia:

“Leonov was one of the twenty air force pilots selected as the first cosmonaut group in 1960. His spacewalk was originally to have taken place on the Vostok 11 mission, but this was cancelled, and the historic event happened on the Voskhod 2 flight instead. He was outside the spacecraft for 12 minutes on March 18, 1965, connected to the craft by a five-foot tether. At the end of the 12 minute spacewalk, Leonov’s spacesuit had inflated in the vacuum of space to the point where he could not reenter the airlock. He opened a valve to allow some of the suit’s pressure to bleed off, and was barely able to get back inside the capsule. Leonov had spent some eighteen months undergoing intense weightlessness training for the mission.”

March 16, 1927 – cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov is born

Russian cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov was born March 16, 1927. He was the first man to die in a manned space mission (Soyuz 1) on April 24, 1967. He was also the first cosmonaut to travel in space more than once.

Wikipedia says:

“He was selected to become a cosmonaut in 1960 with the first cosmonaut group. After being the backup for Pavel Popovich on Vostok 4, his first spaceflight was with the Voskhod 1 mission. On his second flight, Soyuz 1, he was killed during a return, when the spacecraft crashed owing to failure of the parachute.”

March 16, 1966 – NASA launches Gemini 8

Gemini 8 was a manned spaceflight launched March 16, 1966. It was the sixth Gemini flight, and the 12th manned American flight overall. The crew was made up of Command Pilot Neil Armstrong and David Scott.

One of the two major objectives included a difficult docking maneuver. About this Wikipedia says:

“What followed the successful docking by Armstrong were some of the most hair-raising few minutes in space-program history. The Gemini VIII capsule, still docked to the Agena, began rolling continuously. Never having faced this in simulation, the crew undocked from the Agena. The problem was a stuck thruster on the spacecraft, which now tumbled even faster at the dizzying rate of one revolution per second. The only way to stop the motion was to use the capsule’s reentry control thrusters, which meant that Armstrong and Scott had to cut short their mission and make an emergency return to Earth 10 hours after launch. They were still nauseated after splashdown, as well as disappointed: Scott had missed out on the planned space-walk.”

Gemini 8 “successfully docked with Gemini Agena target vehicle GATV-6 hours 34 min after liftoff. Because of problems with the spacecraft control system, the crew was forced to undock after approximately 30 min. The spacecraft-target vehicle combination had begun to encounter increasing yaw and roll rates. The crew regained control of their spacecraft by using the reentry control system, which prompted an early landing in a secondary landing area in the Pacific. No EVA was performed. The failure was caused by an electrical short in control system. Docking and re-rendezvous secondary objectives were not achieved due to the shortened mission.”
Source: NASA

March 12, 1923 – U.S. Astronaut Wally Schirra is born

Walter Marty Schirra, Jr. (March 12, 1923 – May 3, 2007) was one of the original Mercury 7 astronauts chosen for the Project Mercury, America’s first effort to put men in space. He was the only man to fly in all of America’s first three space programs (Mercury, Gemini and Apollo). He flew on Mercury 8, Gemini 6A and Apollo 7.

Wikipedia says:

“On October 3, 1962, Schirra became the fifth American in space, piloting the Mercury 8 (Sigma 7) on a six-orbit mission lasting 9 hours, 13 minutes, and 11 seconds.

“On December 15, 1965, Schirra flew into space a second time in Gemini 6A with Tom Stafford, rendezvousing with astronauts Frank Borman and James Lovell, Jr. in Gemini 7.

“On October 11, 1968, Schirra became the first man to fly in space three times on his final flight as commander of Apollo 7, the first manned flight in the Apollo program, which occurred after a fatal fire during tests of Apollo 1.”

Quote:

Fellow American astronaut Scott Carpenter (Mercury-Atlas 7) said this about Shirra’s passing (May 3, 2007):

” . . . it makes you realize the fact that the grim reaper waits for us all. And while we’re all accustomed to that end and we’re accustomed to losing our comrades in the aviation game, it’s still a shock and it brings your own mortality finally into view.”
- Quoted in Launch Magainze, November/December 2007: page 56.

March 9, 1968 – Gagarin is born

Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin was born March 9th, 1934 in the village of Klushino, Russia. Gagarin was the first person to reach space on 12 April 1961. Gagarin died in a jet-plane accident March 27, 1968.

Wikipedia says:

“In 1960, after an extensive search and selection process Yuri Gagarin was selected with 19 other cosmonauts for the Soviet space program. Along with the other prospective cosmonauts, he was subjected to a rigorous series of experiments designed to test his physical and psychological endurance; he also underwent intensive training for the upcoming flight. Out of the twenty selected, the eventual choices for the first launch were Gagarin and Gherman Titov because of their excellent performance in training, as well as their physical characteristics — space was at a premium in the small Vostok cockpit and both men were rather short. Gagarin’s last-minute assignment, approved at the highest levels of the CPSU, to take the historic flight, may have been due to Gagarin’s modest upbringing and genial, outgoing personality, as opposed to the middle-class and somewhat aloof demeanor of Titov. Soviet officials weighed other factors as well in selecting Yuri: his appearance, his capacity to handle media attention, his Russian heritage and even the name “Gagarin,” which was also a family name associated with Tsarist aristocracy.”