Close Menu
    Yuri Gagarin Became the First Human in Space Without Knowing If He Would Return
    Space

    Yuri Gagarin Became the First Human in Space Without Knowing If He Would Return

    Share.
    View 22 Comments

    22 Comments

    1. Express_Classic_1569 on

      This is the bravest moment in history. I still find this really fascinating, knowing that climbing into the capsule with technology that was unproven and not knowing if he would return was a really huge risk. Really a hero, considering how much courage he went through just so us humans could leave Earth for the first time.

    5. Bobby_The_Kidd on

      Every astronaut didn’t know if they would return sure, but the title is referring to the fact that the chance of failure was much much higher than a standard flight because of the push to have the first man in space

    6. CitizenCh on

      Absolutely. A brutal truth for early space exploration, that didn’t go away quickly. Richard Nixon had a speech penned in the event that the Apollo 11’s two-man lander failed in some way in its role (stranding two astronauts on the Moon, alive or dead); if the actual astronauts themselves weren’t aware of that possibility, that’s an insane situation to “hope it works out.” Gagarin and the first cosmonauts came years earlier, without the benefit of experience–including their own–that the Apollo programme had.

    7. AdWooden2312 on

      Surprised the rocket could get so high up with his massive balls of steel on board!

    8. spike312 on

      Yuri was the first one to survive and be publicly celebrated. I bet there were a lot of unsuccessful attempts that got covered up.

    10. blueslocation on

      I would be even more scared knowing how much the USSR was secretive about their space program.

    11. Pherllerp on

      There is a fringe theory, and I’m not necessarily endorsing it here, that Gagarin was the first human to survive the trip to space. It’s possible that other people (Cosmonauts presumably) were launched but that they didn’t survive the trip up or back to earth.

    13. SecretOrganization60 on

      He had to eject from his vehicle while reentering because Soviets hadn’t yet figured out how to do a survivable landing.

      Soviets also painted CCCP on his helmet so peasants wouldn’t mistake him for an American and beat him to death.

    14. Musashi_13 on

      If you’d like to read an interesting account of Gagarin’s flight, the book “Beyond: The Astonishing Story of the First Human to Leave Our Planet and Journey into Space” (2021) by Stephen Walker was excellent. 

      The part when the engines of the big rocket finally light and Gagarin tells “Let’s go!” into the radio, and hearing this, Director Korlev yells inside mission control “That’s my boy!” is absolutely thrilling context. 

    15. justduett on

      They all go to space without knowing if they will return. Hell, I go to the restroom without knowing if I will return (to the office).

    16. kytheon on

      Well he was probably going to return in some shape or form. And he eventually turned into a meteorite.

    18. randomusername9284 on

      What is this title lol? He was also the first human in space with nails. Also the first human in space with two hands. And like a gazillion of other stuff.

    19. commandrix on

      There were a lot of odd theories about what the human body could tolerate in space (or not) back then. John Glenn had to test whether humans could swallow in space by eating some applesauce. And of course, Alan Shepard got a little snippy with the engineers and technicians because he thought they were being the holdup by being nervous ninnies.

    21. dr_reverend on

      That’s is a completely BS title and you should be embarrassed OP. There was no way that craft had enough speed to leave earth’s gravity well and EVERYBODY involved knew that.

      All you had to do was add the word “alive” to the end.

    22. n_mcrae_1982 on

      Alexei Leonov (who later performed the first EVA) wrote a great book where he and the rest of the first batch of cosmonauts met with Sergei Korolev (the Soviet rocket designer and a senior official in their space program). Korolev shook hands with each of them, but when he got to Gagarin, he made a point of having a lengthy conversation with him about who he was and where he was from.

      Afterwards, the others knew for certain that Gagarin would be chosen for the first mission.