Public Loneliness: Yuri Gagarin's Circumlunar Flight

by Brennan, Gerald

  The burn will take place over the Gulf of Guinea. That last little bight of the Atlantic Ocean. The armpit of Africa.

  “Five minutes to go.”

  I key in commands to stop the solar rotation and align the spacecraft for the burn. The ionic control system is still acting strangely, but the 100-K tells me I’m properly oriented.

  I transmit: “I’m ready up here.”

  I am excited, even though I know how final this will be. During East-1, if something had gone wrong I would have at least returned to earth eventually. But on this mission, once I hit second cosmic velocity I will be leaving the planet behind. Trusting my life yet again to equations and calculations, scribblings on forgotten chalkboards and discarded pieces of graph paper. The spacecraft will have to stay on course and approach the moon at just the right angle and in just the right spot so that the lunar gravity will send me whipping around back to earth. We will of course be able to make a couple of mid-course corrections. But at best, it will be six days until I can make it home, and if I’m not on a very narrow course, I will not be able to survive reentry. Still, I think of the years when it seemed like I would never make it back up here. And I am here and it is real and I am excited.

  “One minute.”

  I see the seconds count down.

  Then the rocket ignites. Gravity returns and I am pressed back into my form-fitting couch and I watch the timer climb. White numbers on black dials, like the odometer on a car, counting seconds towards the magic number: 459. Watching, watching, watching. Will something go wrong even now? At 440, I bring my hand up to the control panel. If the rocket keeps firing past the appointed time I will need to cut it off manually. Everything has been calculated precisely, but if it is executed sloppily it will all be for naught.

  But right on schedule the numbers stop spinning. Again I feel my body rise against the straps.

  “Second cosmic velocity,” I transmit.

  “We concur. Everything appears nominal. Cedar, you have go-ahead to jettison the Block-D stage.”

  “Jettisoning Block-D stage,” I say. It doesn’t seem enough. So I add: “We’re on our way to the moon!” Even though I’m the only one up here.

  •••

  Near the end of East-1, I knew I was in trouble.

  That orbit had been at a higher inclination, about 65 degrees. It had taken me arcing up towards the Arctic, avoiding Japan, then down across the Pacific, missing South America by swooping below Cape Horn and over the Antarctic Peninsula. Then up across the South Atlantic for reentry. Geography being what it is—the area of knowledge that most thoroughly resists state decrees and revisions—the craft had to begin those procedures over Africa. (At the time I was a young man, and I took all of this without question. But looking back, I can’t escape the nagging thought: it was as if they wanted added redundancy for the combination lock on the manual controls. They didn’t even trust me to fly over any place where I might be tempted to land!)

  So I was passing over Africa when I started my trip back to earth. And I was thinking of my mother, my dear mother. (When we’d last talked, I’d told her I was in training, but I hadn’t told her what for. And I’d told her I’d be taking a trip, but when she’d asked what kind of trip, I’d simply said “A long one!” So I was wondering what she’d think of this—here I was at the tail end of the longest and fastest trip ever taken by a man!) And it seemed like it was all happening according to plan, precisely controlled by timers and clocks. I did not know that there already was one problem—Old Number Seven had burned for too long, so my orbit was higher than expected, so I was coming down off-target. The relay ships had neglected to pass that information along.

  And soon there was a problem that launch control couldn’t conceal. This may be your first time hearing about it—I did not discuss it in my memoir, for reasons which should soon be apparent—but I swear that this time I’m telling the full truth.

  The retro-rocket pack fired normally, creating an artificial gravity that pushed me back into the couch. Then there was a sharp jolt as the four explosive devices fired to sever the metal straps holding the TDU—the instrument module—to the reentry module, the metal sphere in which I sat. And as it happened there was a violent twisting of the ship, and the lights on my instrumentation panel went off—but they came on again.

  The instrument signals came via an umbilical cable that went from the TDU to the reentry module, so it was obvious at once what had happened: the cable was still attached. It was supposed to be severed via a guillotine device, and the instrument module was supposed to fall away so the heat shield could take the brunt of reentry.

  The craft started to spin, faster and faster and faster. And I could tell it was not a simple spin: I was rotating about all three axes. And I could hear the retro-pack banging against the hull of my craft! I hoped the umbilical cord would give way soon, but it occurred to me that it might not happen soon enough. And the black of space outside the portholes had been replaced by a plasma glow, an orange-pink furnace just centimeters from my face, but hotter than any foundry I’d seen.

  I could feel the air getting warner in my ship. It was not my imagination! I had dropped the faceplate visor and was sealed up in my pressure suit and still I could feel myself getting warmer.

  I told myself not to worry; I remembered the forge at Lyubertsy, and how the foreman had told us not to fear the incandescent sparks, the rivers of molten steel. “Fire is strong,” he’d said. “But water is stronger than fire, and earth is stronger than water. And man is the strongest of all.”

  Finally the cable gave way, and I heard a last mighty thud against the side of my ship—but the capsule started spinning faster! And the gravitational forces pinned me against my couch and I felt pressure in my head and saw my vision fading.

  But then the rotation slowed.

  At last the capsule was reentering properly, and it had been weighted and balanced so as to fall in a stable manner. I monitored the gauges: pressure normal; temperature above normal, but coming down.

  Now I was feeling good. I had my wits about me. I had come through the worst part, the great unknown. True, it hadn’t gone as expected, but everything was designed well enough to handle a little abnormality. My portholes were streaked with burn marks, but the ship had held together. The sky was blue again. The capsule felt comfortable and familiar.

  Boom! The hatch blew off.

  Instantly everything was bright and smoky and there was a circle of sky where the hatch had been. This was as expected—we had been training for it—but still it was jarring in the moment. I felt naked, exposed.

  I tensed myself.

  My ejection seat fired, hurtling me out of my cozy capsule and into the empty sky.

  •••

  Ever since my last flight I’ve been waiting to be truly weightless, waiting to feel free. For space travel comes at a cost: you get a short wondrous time where everything feels infinite, then it’s off into a gilded cage, a public prison of sorts, in which your own unique experiences keep you confined.

  The important thing is that I’ve escaped that—escaped everything, really—and now at last I can be free. Like Maresyev, I’ve fought hard to climb back into the cockpit. I may not have had as many obstacles, nor have mine been as daunting, but that is how it goes. You do not choose your obstacles; they line up before you, seemingly of their own volition.

  After the burn, they radio up telemetry. Delta-v values and expected times for the mid-course correction. Dutifully, I copy it all down.

  And now at last I can unstrap myself. Leave my couch behind.

  I’m grinning as I undo the buckles. My body rises of its own accord. I have floated in aircraft, brief parabolas in empty Tupolevs that reeked of poorly-cleaned vomit, but here there will be no sudden buffets throwing me towards the walls, no buzzers and lights reminding me to float back down to the floor in thirty seconds lest I come crashing down after the pilots start pulling up. Everything smells fresh and new—or perhaps
I’m imagining. (Your sinuses get fuller in zero gravity. They don’t drain, and there’s a puffiness to your face.) Still, I’m thrilled. All of those years of gymnastics—here at last I can tumble freely!

  Or try to, anyway. The cabin feels somewhat larger now, but it is still not roomy, even solo. Two and a half cubic meters. I consider doing a somersault, but realize in short order I don’t have space. (The Union has a large orbital module attached, but for the 7K-L1, overall mass was at a premium; they basically just used the instrument-aggregate compartment and descent module from the larger ship and crammed some additional instruments into the latter.) Even reorienting’s problematic; attempting to reverse myself, I bang my head against the panel and go ricocheting off. Still, it’s fun and good—like being drunk in three dimensions! Some have complained about nausea, especially when floating free, but I’m fine.

  I peer out of the porthole. The Block-D stage is falling behind but still visible, bright and sharp in the sunlight. Dawn-2 transmitted a command for it to fire its thrusters briefly, and I pulsed my controls to get a little extra separation, but given the realities of orbital mechanics, it’ll be following me around the moon.

  I cannot see my destination. Right now it’s blocked by the bulk of the spacecraft. But beyond the Block-D stage I now have a full view of earth, half-shadowed, gleaming, round and big like a basketball in front of your face when you’re getting ready to pass—a massive ball of water and cloud and ice, slowly getting smaller.

  •••

  When my ejection seat finally separated, I was suspended in the sky under a beautiful full parachute.

  Any misgivings I’d had about the reentry had fallen away with my craft. I was in my element—the only phase of the flight we’d been able to practice, rather than simulate. And not only had we spent months parachuting, we’d been trained to recognize geography from the air, to know where we were by sight. But it turned out I had no need—this was familiar! I was coming down near Saratov—which was where I’d learned to fly not all that many years before. (Those years were as close in time to East-1 as East-1 is to me now.) This was not as expected—it was better than expected!

  I’d ejected at an altitude of several kilometers, so I was a long time floating down. And as my body slowly fell, my spirits swiftly rose. Everything had fallen into place. Even the dangerous tumbling reentry now felt right, for it had heightened the drama, and given me cause to feel I’d really risked something, really accomplished something. And now, this—the familiar farmlands, the city by the river, the mighty Volga shimmering beyond. I hadn’t been back since those flying club days, and it felt like a homecoming. Another circle completed.

  I floated down into a field. Saw the soil rising until at last it was there. I landed so gently I didn’t even need to fall and roll.

  I remember thinking: it’s done. It’s done, and it can never be undone.

  As I gathered my parachute about me, I saw a woman and child. I waved to them. They eyed me with suspicion—my face plate was down and we could not make eye contact. Then a farmer came up behind them—a very confused farmer! Yuri Levitan had announced my flight over the radio when I was just about to reenter—they’d broadcast it nationwide on our radios, those radios that couldn’t be turned off, the ones that sent the same news into every apartment and office and factory—and the country was starting to rejoice. My mother and my wife were at last learning the truth about my trip! But these people had been out in the field, so they hadn’t heard.

  Still, the farmer saw a man in an exotic orange suit with a futuristic white helmet, and he did not see an airplane. He raised his pitchfork warily. (I wondered if he was going to try to run me through!)

  I pulled up the faceplate on my helmet.

  “Did you come from outer space?” he asked.

  “Yes, yes, I came from outer space!”

  Still he looked suspicious! Perhaps he was thinking of Gary Powers, the U-2 flight that had come crashing to earth not all that long before. Surely he knew that C.I.A. spies can learn perfect Russian! “Who are you?”

  “I’m a real man! A Soviet man, a Russian, just like you!” I pointed at the letters over my forehead: C.C.C.P.

  Here he finally relaxed a little. The woman had gathered her child to her side; they watched as the farmer helped me gather my parachute. He started talking, babbling excitedly. There were cars coming up on the roadway and I don’t remember much of what he said.

  I remember thinking: what now? I need to report in, that’s what!

  And he started asking about my flight, and I didn’t know what I was allowed to say, so I think I told him I needed to find a telephone. (In truth, I think we were both drunk with excitement!)

  And now we were walking over to the road. And I’d been up there so long, floating down so long, that people all over the countryside had seen me. So it wasn’t long before more people joined us, good people, peasants, sons and daughters of the Soviet soil, all insatiably curious about where I’d been and what I’d seen and what it felt like. And there were more cars on the road now, and men with uniforms getting out, anxious.

  “Gather around, gather around!” I told everyone who had helped me. “We need to get some photographs!” As if any of us was going to forget! Still, I wanted a picture. To get everyone together, to say: we are all part of this historic day. Even if we’re not all equal participants, we’re all a part of it.

  But it was not to be. The men in the uniforms were upon us, and they weren’t interested in pictures—they wanted to get me out of there and hand me off to the appropriate authorities. (This was the type of thing that could make or break careers for everyone who was even remotely involved.) Seeing two captains, I saluted, but they did the same, anxiously, and there was some awkwardness until they told me what they’d heard on the radio, that I’d been promoted to major. And they shepherded me over to the cars—and they, too, started asking about my flight! And there was some comic haggling—about whether we should drive to their office in Saratov or to the air base outside Engels, and whether I was to sit in the front of the car or the back, and who would have the privilege of driving me, and so forth. (I even offered to drive. I wasn’t entirely joking!)

  Then when we were at last rolling away—me in the back of the lead car, the captain and his driver still discussing where to go!—a helicopter came swooping out of the sky, the noise of its rotors drowning our conversations and ending the bickering.

  In a matter of minutes I was inside it. I looked out the window and saw the peasants still standing there, some waving, some jabbering excitedly; the farmer was pointing out where I’d landed, where he’d seen me, our footsteps through the soil. Our lives had been blown together quite literally by the winds, and now in a blast of rotor wash, we were being propelled apart, and he was now covering his face against the whirlwind of dirt and grass. But even in those few minutes, I’d noticed something in his eyes: a strangeness, a separation.

  And soon I knew it wasn’t going away. The helicopter flew me to the base outside Engels, where I spoke by phone with Khrushchev himself. From there I was whisked away to Kuybyshev. And I was being driven to an officers’ cottage on the outskirts of town and there were crowds of people in the street already, throngs of people spontaneously celebrating my flight! And our motorcade was hard to miss—a police motorcycle escort and cars full of men in green uniforms and me, still in the blue pressure garment from my spacesuit. And somewhere in the crowd a bystander had been watching all of this while leaning on his bicycle and—quite impulsively!—he tried to slide his bicycle under our car tires, to slow us up and get a better look at me! He was willing to wreck his own bicycle and risk police wrath for a few seconds in my presence, a better look, a clearer memory!

  I’d known everything was going to be different. That was when I knew it would also be beyond my control.

  •••

  But now, at least, everything is back under control.

  I’m on my way to the moon, and the firs
t phase of my journey is over, and I have to get used to something I’ve never had in space: routine. The basics of life—eating and sleeping, and all those other bodily functions one doesn’t discuss in polite company. I am a real man, after all.

  We are no longer eating from tubes—now there are meal packs. I eat sausages, carrots and chocolate, then set their empty weightless containers spinning like satellites, like space stations. From my water pack I take a long pull with the straw, then pull the straw out and squeeze the water back out. It hangs suspended, a shimmering crystal globule that quivers in front of me. I stab it with the straw, suck it down a few sizes, and then I make a jerky move and it splits in half. I try to gobble each half up but don’t quite get the second. It clings strangely to my face—with no gravity, it doesn’t drip off. I root around for a sponge to dry myself.

  There are a few things to do after lunch, but not much. Solar radiation measurements. Deployment of the high-gain antenna, which will transmit the television signal back to earth.

  Then we test the television system, which looks not all that different from the one on East-1, although here the technical specifications are better, and there is an additional camera mounted externally. I turn on the lamp that’s bolted to the instrument console and squint into its glare. Then I settle back into my couch. I see one of the packages from lunch floating up by the camera and swat it out of the way.

  “Let me know if I’m in sight, Dawn-2.”

  “I see you, Yura!” Blondie says in my ear. “Smile for us.”

  I give a smile but it feels forced. (There’s something in the eyes you can’t fake, some emotional energy you transmit involuntarily when you’re really and truly happy. And you receive a bit of it, looking at someone else who’s truly happy. It seems like something worthy of study, like lasers and reflectors, but then again it seems like something you’d know intuitively already, one of those experiments whose results don’t surprise.) The camera’s inscrutable eye does not change, does not twinkle to catch the light, does not always make me want to smile back. It is a problem with which I am well familiar.