Foreign cosmonauts who flew on Soviet and Russian spacecraft. First in space

Yuri Gagarin's flight into space became a grandiose event for all mankind. The name of the first cosmonaut went down in world history. You will learn about the details of the first space travel, the dangers that awaited man in the uncharted spaces of the Universe from this article.

Flight purpose

During his first flight on the Vostok spacecraft, Gagarin was supposed to make one orbit around the Earth. The flight altitude was supposed to be 180-230 kilometers, duration - 80 minutes. During an extraterrestrial journey, the astronaut needed to find out how a person feels in outer space on a ship specially equipped for his life, evaluate the operation of all aircraft systems, and check communication with the Earth. Gagarin had to make sure that the means of landing the cosmonaut and the ship were safe and reliable. How long did Gagarin's flight last? You will learn about this by reading this article.

Possible risks

The USSR participated in the space race. Information has appeared that in 1961 (April 20) the Americans plan to send a man into space. Therefore, the decision about who would become the first cosmonaut was made very quickly. At the meeting of the Civil Committee, the candidacy of Yuri Gagarin was approved, and German Titov became his backup. The Vostok ship was also created in a short time. The aircraft's equipment has been significantly simplified. The designers had to sacrifice the ship's soft landing and emergency rescue systems at launch. In addition, the ship did not have a backup braking system. This decision was motivated by the fact that in such a low orbit it would leave its trajectory and fall to Earth itself due to natural causes - braking on the upper layers of the atmosphere. This process, according to experts, should have taken ten days. They were calculated for the same time. Read on to find out how long Gagarin's space flight actually lasted.

Start

The Vostok spacecraft was launched at 09:07 Moscow time, in 1961, with Gagarin on board, a pilot-cosmonaut who decided to conquer outer space, despite the possible risk to life and health. Before the start, Yuri said the now legendary phrase: “Let’s go!” Vostok worked satisfactorily, but at the last stage the radio control system failed, so the third stage engine was turned off after the ship was in space. The actual altitude of the orbit along which the spacecraft began to move exceeded the calculated one by 100 km. According to declassified data, its parameters were 327x180 km. If the ship's braking system had not worked, then under the influence of the atmosphere the device could have returned to Earth from 20 to 50 days. This would mean the inevitable death of the astronaut. Everyone now knows how long Gagarin’s flight lasted. Fortunately, Yuri's journey ended well.

In orbit

On the same day, the whole world learned how many minutes Gagarin’s flight lasted - the cosmonaut was on board the Vostok spacecraft for 108 minutes. All this time, Yuri carried out simple experiments: he drank, ate, tried to write. Gagarin's attempt to put the pencil next to him led to it instantly floating away. The astronaut concluded that necessary objects in space need to be tied down. Yuri recorded all his observations on a tape recorder. Since before the flight, scientists did not know how stable the human psyche would be in space, the ship's control panel was blocked. The password was in a special envelope, which Gagarin had to open in orbit. According to legend, well-wishers told Yura the treasured combination of numbers (125) before the flight.

Emergency situation

How long did Gagarin's flight last? It could have been much shorter and ended with the death of the first cosmonaut, because the landing of the spacecraft turned out to be no less dangerous than the launch. The braking system designed by Isaev worked with a slight flaw. The automatic separation of the compartments did not take place, as a result of which, before entering the upper atmosphere, the spacecraft was randomly thrown from side to side at a speed of 1 revolution per second. Gagarin did not lose his composure and reported to Earth about the emergency situation in conditional terms. Fortunately, the cables of the instrument compartment burned out in denser layers of the atmosphere, and it finally separated from the ship. The subsequent landing of the device took place in a more relaxed mode. How long did Yuri Gagarin's flight last? Only 108 minutes, and how many events happened in this short period of time!

Overload

The descent of the Vostok spacecraft, like all other spacecraft of the same class, took place along a ballistic trajectory. This meant that the astronaut experienced tenfold overload during landing. Yuri was prepared for this test, and he successfully passed it. All scientists and designers involved in the launch of the first man into space knew how long Gagarin’s flight lasted, because they monitored the ship in real time. However, it is unlikely that the astronaut had the opportunity to keep track of time. The psychological stress turned out to be much stronger than the physical stress. After the ship entered the dense layers of the atmosphere, the metal plating began to melt under the influence of high temperature, the value of which increased to 3-5 thousand degrees. Streams of liquid metal flowed down the windows of the windows. The ship's cabin crackled ominously. It was difficult even for an astronaut prepared for any surprises to withstand such a mental load. It is interesting that Gagarin’s wristwatch passed the overload test with honor during the flight and worked properly during the entire journey.

Hard landing

After Vostok dropped to seven kilometers above the Earth, Gagarin ejected. The capsule and the astronaut began to descend to the ground separately, each with their own parachute. In a completely sealed spacesuit, the breathing valve did not immediately open. The astronaut almost died. The final test was the threat of immersion in the icy current of the Volga. Skillfully managing the slings, Gagarin managed to avoid this danger. He landed a few kilometers from the river bank.

Meeting on Earth

How long Gagarin's flight in space lasted no longer mattered. Thanks to his courage, incredible endurance and will to win, the astronaut forever etched his name on the pages of world history. The task was completed. The first space explorer was our compatriot, Yuri Alekseevich Gagarin. And this event is difficult to overestimate. Due to malfunctions in the braking propulsion system, the landing did not take place in the planned area, the Stalingrad area, but in the Saratov region, in the vicinity of the city of Engels. According to the official version, Corporal V.G. Sapeltsev was the first to notice Gagarin, and Major A.N. Gassiev met and delivered the first cosmonaut to the nearest military unit. However, according to other sources, the first people Yuri met after landing were Anna, the forester’s wife, and her granddaughter Margarita. Later, military and local residents arrived at the scene. Gagarin was taken to a military unit, from where the first cosmonaut reported to the local air defense commander about the successfully completed mission.

Glory to the hero!

Yuri Gagarin became a human symbol who took the first step into the unknown expanses of the Universe. It is well known that he flew into space as a senior lieutenant and landed as a major. All sorts of prizes and awards rained down on the simple Russian guy. she called him not an earthly man, but a “heavenly one” and, contrary to etiquette, took a photo with him. Gagarin's sunny smile has become a real brand. Yuri passed the test of fame with dignity. His feat showed the whole world what the Russian people are capable of. And now we are proud that it was our compatriot who made the first flight into space. Gold medal named after. Yu. Gagarin is awarded to astronauts and cosmonauts who have contributed to the Federal Space Agency established a special award - the Gagarin badge. Many squares, districts, streets, boulevards and avenues are named after the first cosmonaut. The city of Gzhatsk, where Yuri spent his childhood, was renamed Gagarin. People all over the world know how long Gagarin’s flight lasted. The astronaut's name is repeated in different languages ​​with pride and admiration.

Incredible facts

More than 50 years ago, on April 12, 1961, Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first man in space, ushering in the era of human spaceflight. The Vostok-1 launch vehicle with Yuri Gagarin on board took off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome at 9:07 Moscow time.

Reaching speeds unprecedented for human flight at the time, the spacecraft escaped Earth's gravitational pull and entered orbit around our planet, orbiting once before re-entering the atmosphere and landing on Soviet soil.

Here are 5 interesting facts about this historic mission:

1. How long was Gagarin in space?

The entire mission lasted 108 minutes, and the flight around the Earth at a speed of 28,260 km/h took less than an hour and a half. During this time, Vostok 1 completed a not-quite-circular orbit at a maximum altitude of 327 km, before slowing to the point where the capsule detached into the atmosphere for a ballistic return.

2. What kind of device was Vostok-1?

Vostok 1 was a spherical capsule that was designed to eliminate changes in the center of gravity. Thus, the ship had to provide comfort for a crew of one, regardless of direction. But what it was not designed for was landing with a person on board.

Unlike later Russian spacecraft such as the modern Soyuz, Vostok 1 was not equipped with a motor to slow it down as it headed towards Earth, and so Gagarin had to eject before reaching Earth at an altitude of approximately 7 km.

3. What prevented earlier missions from reaching orbit?

In one word we can say - speed. To escape the gravitational pull of the Earth, the ship needed to reach a speed of 28,260 km/h, or about 8 km/s. Before Vostok-1, no rocket was powerful enough to travel that fast. The cannonball-shaped Vostok-1 capsule helped the rocket and spacecraft achieve the required speed.

4. How was Vostok tested before Gagarin’s mission?

A few weeks before the flight, the prototype of the ship on which Gagarin set off, Vostok 3KA-2, completed its flight, carrying a mannequin the size of a man, who was named Ivan Ivanovich, and a dog, Zvezdochka. Ivan was sold at Sotheby's in 1993, and the capsule was sold last year at the same auction for $2.88 million.

5. What happened before the words “Let’s go”?

Gagarin is best known for his phrase “Let's go!”, which he said when Vostok broke away from the Earth. But last year, recordings of Gagarin's last words before his first flight appeared. This data is from the on-board tape recorder, where Gagarin recorded his thoughts during the flight. Before the well-known words “Let’s go,” an interesting dialogue with Sergei Korolev was recorded on the transcript:

Korolev: There's lunch, dinner and breakfast in the tube packing.

Gagarin: I see.

Korolev: Got it?

Gagarin: Got it.

Korolev: Sausage, dragee and jam for tea.

Gagarin: Yeah.

Korolev: Got it?

Gagarin: Got it.

Korolev: Here.

Gagarin: Got it.

Korolev: 63 pieces, you'll be fat.

Gagarin: Ho-ho.

Korolev: When you arrive today, you’ll eat everything right away.

Gagarin: No, the main thing is that there is sausage to snack on the moonshine.

Everyone laughs.

Korolev: It’s an infection, but he writes down everything, you bastard. Hehe.

“When flying in space, you cannot help but go into space... An astronaut must be able to carry out the necessary repair and production work in interstellar space... This is not fantasy - this is a necessity. The more humanity flies into space, the more this need will be felt.”

These words, spoken at the very beginning of the space age by Korolev, became truly prophetic. In less than fifty years of “extravehicular activity,” dozens of people have been in outer space, and the duration of a person’s stay in one exit has increased from several minutes to several hours. The creation and maintenance of the ISS would generally be impossible without long spacewalks and a gigantic volume of repair and installation operations. However, the first step on this path was taken on March 18, 1965. It was on this day that the Soviet pilot-cosmonaut Alexei Arkhipovich Leonov was the first of the earthlings to leave the spaceship. He spent only 12 minutes 9 seconds in space, but in the exploration of the Universe this event rightfully took second place after the legendary flight of Gagarin.

Alexey Arkhipovich was born on May 30, 1934 in a small village called Listvyanka, located six hundred kilometers north of the city of Kemerovo. His grandfather lived in this place for a long time, exiled by the tsarist government after the revolution of 1905, Alexei’s parents came here from Donbass - first his mother, and after the Civil War ended, his father - Leonov Arkhip Alekseevich. His mother, Evdokia Minaevna, worked as a village teacher, his father, a former Donetsk miner, got a job as chairman of the village council. Alexey was their ninth child.

In 1936, a denunciation was written against Arkhip Alekseevich. Under the article “enemy of the people,” he was sent to a Siberian camp without trial or investigation, and his mother with eight children (one of Leonov’s sisters, Vera, died in infancy) and the ninth in position were expelled from the house with confiscation of all property. The children were also expelled from school. The future cosmonaut said: “At that time, my older sister lived in Kemerovo and worked on the construction of a thermal power plant. There she married a boy from Mogilev - he also worked in construction and studied at a technical school. They had a room in the barracks. In thirty-degree frost, my sister’s husband came for us on the sledge, spread out a sheepskin coat, laid the eight of us down and covered the sheepskin coat on top…. So we found ourselves in a Kemerovo barracks - eleven people in a sixteen-meter room. The guy was 22 years old - a simple worker, a student, he sheltered the family of an enemy of the people. Well, what kind of courage you had to have...” In 1939, Arkhip Alekseevich was rehabilitated and returned home. The Leonov family slowly began to get back on their feet. And soon a decree was issued to support mothers of many children. Still in the same barracks, they were given two rooms - sixteen and eighteen square meters.

In 1943, Alexey Arkhipovich went to elementary school No. 35. Among the main hobbies of young Alexei at that time was painting old Russian stoves, which he learned from immigrants from Ukraine who lived nearby. Once, while already studying at school, Leonov saw a book with black and white illustrations of Aivazovsky’s paintings from his classmate and was eager to buy it. It cost him very dearly - in payment, Alexey had to pay for a month the 50 grams of bread and a lump of sugar given to him every day at school. Since then, Aivazovsky became his favorite artist.

In 1947, the Leonov family moved to a new place - to the city of Kaliningrad. Here Alexey graduated from secondary school No. 21 in 1953, receiving his matriculation certificate. By that time, he was already very interested in flying, knew famous aviators by heart, watched all the films about pilots, and made model airplanes on his own. Using the notes of his older brother Peter, who was an aviation technician, Alexey Arkhipovich with enviable tenacity studied the basics of flight theory, aircraft engines and aircraft designs. Combined with outstanding sporting achievements, this became the key that opened the doors of flight school for the guy. In August 1953, Leonov was enrolled in the tenth Military Aviation School for initial training of pilots, located in the city of Kremenchug (Poltava region), which he successfully graduated in 1955. Due to his demonstrated extraordinary abilities, he was sent to Ukraine to the city of Chuguev to the Higher Military School of Fighter Pilots. And from 1957 to 1959, Alexey served in the 69th Air Army of the Tenth Guards Division, located on the territory of Ukraine.

At the end of the summer of 1959, Colonel Karpov, the future head of the Cosmonaut Training Center, arrived in Leonov’s division. He invited several pilots to his place for a conversation, including Alexei Arkhipovich. By the way, the day before the aviator was involved in a serious accident, which occurred due to a failure of the hydraulic system of the MiG-15bis fighter. Oil flooded the alternator, and the entire group of navigation instruments turned off. Having difficulty finding his bearings, Leonov immediately directed the plane to the airfield. When he had already passed the long drive, the “Fire” indicator came on and the siren started working. Leonov knew that in such a situation it was necessary to eject, but at an altitude of two hundred meters it was pure suicide. The pilot was landing, fully aware that an explosion could occur at any moment. On the near drive, he cut off the fuel supply and sat down with the engine turned off. Alexey Arkhipovich did not reach the runway about three hundred meters, but taxied onto it and stopped. As a result, the aircraft did not receive any damage, and, as it turned out, there was no fire at all - the indication worked because the oil was sucked into the compressor.

At the meeting, Colonel Karpov, without explaining his intentions, inquired about Leonov’s health and his plans for the future. Alexey Arkhipovich noted that he is completely healthy and is thinking of continuing to fly. Then the colonel suggested that he enter the test pilot school. The call came on October 2, 1959, and two days later Leonov arrived in Sokolniki at the Aviation Hospital (TsVNIAG) for a medical examination. There he saw Yuri Gagarin for the first time: “I entered the room and found that I was not alone - a man of my age was sitting on a stool, naked to the waist, and reading. What struck me most was that he was reading… Hemingway’s “The Old Man and the Sea.” In 1959, even among the reading elite, few knew about this writer, but here is a pilot... He looked at me with big smiling blue eyes and introduced himself: “Senior Lieutenant Yuri Gagarin.” After a short time, the pilots became close friends. After the death of the first cosmonaut, Leonov said: “He didn’t stand out in any way, but it was still impossible to pass by him - you’d stand up and look. Ordinary speech, classic Russian, understandable and memorable. Only later did I realize what an extraordinary person he was - he grasped everything on the fly, had an amazing systemic analysis, was obliging, hardworking, devoted to friendship...”

In the hospital, Leonov was subjected to numerous, often grueling, examinations. Alexey Arkhipovich said: “From my point of view, a lot of nonsense was made during the examination. Among the doctors there were people involved in scientific work and who used astronauts as material for their dissertations. Because of all this nonsense that was later cancelled, we lost a lot of talented guys... If we applied the old medical requirements to the latest recruitment into the cosmonaut corps, then probably not a single person would pass... After I became a leader, I reviewed a lot of things with these same doctors and relaxed the requirements.”

Despite everything, in 1960 Leonov was accepted into the first cosmonaut corps. Months of hard training followed in preparation for the upcoming flights, during which the participants continued to be subjected to various medical experiments, often unjustifiably cruel: “Maneuvers in the centrifuge were accompanied by very high overloads, reaching 14g. This is a crazy load. There were hemorrhages on my back after such training; there were hemorrhages both inside and on the soft tissues. In general, all this did not improve health.” During one of these tests, Alexey Arkhipovich was placed in a hyperbaric chamber for fifteen days. Using an unknown paste for electrical conductivity, sensors were glued to his body. Further, from the words of the astronaut: “I wake up on the tenth day and see that the whole sheet is covered in blood. I looked, and a couple of sensors fell off and with them, rags of my skin. In the places where they were glued, there was no epidermis left - only muscles twitching in the rhythm of the heartbeat. It took two months for these places to heal. I cut off the rest of the zinc sensors and put them on a shelf so that after the experiment I could show them to those who need them... But on the thirteenth day the oxygen began to run out, the experiment was stopped, and I was taken out of there. When I returned to the camera for the sensors, they were no longer there.... There was no physical evidence. The same public later burned Bondarenko...”

Another incident occurred during the casting of the astronaut's seat support. During this operation, Leonov had to lie naked in a trough, which was then filled with liquid plaster at a temperature of about 10 degrees. It lay in this icy sour cream, which gradually hardened and warmed up. The most important thing was not to miss the moment when the plaster began to harden. And it was with him that they missed this moment: “And they began to pick me out. And here every hair is an anchor. It didn’t work out, so they pulled it - and there were scraps of skin left in the pieces of plaster along with the hair.”

In 1963, after six single-seat spacecraft of the Vostok type (including Vostok 6 with Valentina Tereshkova) had been in orbit around the planet, the design bureau, headed by Korolev, began designing a new spacecraft of the same series, but designed for three seats. Simultaneously with the preparation of the flight (which was successfully completed in October 1964 by Komarov, Feoktistov and Egorov), based on the new Voskhod design, it was decided to create a two-seater ship that would allow a person to go into airless space. The space freed up after dismantling the third chair was used as a platform for putting on a spacesuit, as well as entering the airlock chamber.

By the way, it was initially planned to conduct experiments with animals. After the box was depressurized, the animal inside it, dressed in a spacesuit, had to make an independent exit (or it was intended to be pushed out) from the spacecraft with a mandatory subsequent return for research. However, such a step was abandoned. Firstly, questions arose about developing a special spacesuit for the animal. Secondly, such an experiment did not answer the main question: is a person capable of moving and navigating in such an unusual environment.

As a result of considering various technical solutions, the choice was given to the use of an airlock chamber, which is a small space isolated on all sides. The astronaut, dressed in a spacesuit, had to remain in it until all the air surrounding him was released. After this, he will be able to open the hatch leading outside. The return to the ship took place in the reverse order - the airlock chamber, closed from the outside and inside, was gradually filled with air, after which the internal hatch opened, and the astronaut entered the ship's cabin. The airlock itself was inflatable, located outside the aircraft body. During entry into orbit, it was placed under the fairing in a folded form, and before descending to Earth, its main part was shot off, and the spacecraft reached the dense layers of the atmosphere in its usual form, except for a small growth in the area of ​​the entrance hatch. Tests showed that the compartment's ballistics were not affected.

In parallel with the changes to the Voskhod spacecraft, two crews of cosmonauts were preparing for the flight: Pavel Belyaev with Alexei Leonov and their backups, Viktor Gorbatko and Evgeniy Khrunov. It is curious that when selecting the crew, not only the tasks and goals of the flight, its complexity and duration were taken into account, but also the psychological, individual characteristics of the astronauts, presented by psychologists. The crew of the Voskhod 2 ship had special requirements regarding the criteria of coherence and teamwork. It was assumed that such a complex task as leaving the cabin of a ship into outer space through an airlock chamber could only be solved with complete trust, mutual understanding and faith in each other. In accordance with research by psychologists, Belyaev was characterized as a strong-willed and self-possessed person who does not panic even in the most difficult situations, showing great persistence and logical thinking in achieving his goals. Leonov, in turn, belonged to the choleric type, was impetuous, courageous, decisive, and easily developed vigorous activity. In addition, his artistic gift was noted, the ability to quickly memorize the paintings presented to his eyes, and then reproduce them very accurately. These two people, having different personalities, complemented each other perfectly, creating, according to psychologists, a “highly compatible group” capable of successfully completing the task assigned to them and creating a detailed account of all the problems and surprises associated with being in space.

For going into space, a special spacesuit was also created, called “Berkut”. Unlike the spacesuits that were flown on the Vostok, it had an additional sealed shell, which increased overall reliability. Essentially a thermos, it consisted of layers of aluminum-coated plastic film. The outer overalls were made of multi-layer metallized fabric. The suit became much heavier - the weight was added by the life support system, located in the back pack and including a ventilation system and two two-liter oxygen cylinders. In addition, just in case, a backup oxygen system was installed in the airlock chamber, connected via a hose to the spacesuit. The color of the spacesuit also changed - to better reflect the sun's rays, the orange color was changed to white, and a light filter was installed on the helmet. Alexey Arkhipovich recalled: “In December 1963, we visited Korolev’s experimental design bureau. Sergei Pavlovich met us, took us to the workshop and showed us a model of the Voskhod, equipped with some kind of unusual camera. Seeing our surprise, he explained that this was a gateway to enter outer space. Then Sergei Pavlovich asked me to put on a new spacesuit and try to perform a series of experiments. After two hours of work, during which I had to work quite hard, I met Korolev again. I remember telling him that the task could be completed, you just need to think it through well.”

The total weight of the “exit suit” was about 100 kilograms, but in zero-gravity conditions this did not play a significant role. Problems were created by the air pressure that filled the sealed shell and made the suit unyielding and rigid. The astronauts had to overcome the resistance of their clothing with great effort. Alexey Arkhipovich recalled: “Just to squeeze the hand in the glove, it was necessary to apply a force of 25 kilograms.” In this regard, during the entire preparation for the flight, special importance was attached to physical fitness - the astronauts did daily jogging and intensively engaged in weightlifting and gymnastics. In addition, the training complex for better control of one’s body included diving, trampoline exercises, parachute descents, and exercises on a rotating “Zhukovsky bench.” Conditions for short-term real weightlessness were also created for astronauts - in an airplane flying along a special trajectory. Leonov said: “In the huge cabin of the TU-104, a model of the Voskhod 2 cabin was mounted, which had a life-size airlock chamber. The plane dived down, accelerated and went steeply upward, performing a “slide” during which weightlessness set in. Its “quality” depended entirely on the skill of the pilots, who, relying only on the data of their vestibular apparatus, forced the plane to fly exactly in a parabola. With each such maneuver, weightlessness lasted a little more than twenty seconds. During an hour and a half of flight, five such “slides” were made, gaining a total of two minutes of weightlessness... We took to the air many times, step by step in these short periods of time, perfecting all the details of entering the ship’s cabin and exiting the airlock.”

Interestingly, in those years there were many scientific theories about human behavior in outer space. Some experts quite seriously argued that the astronaut would inevitably become “welded” to the spacecraft. Similar concerns were based on cold welding experiments conducted in a vacuum. Other scientific luminaries believed that a person, having lost his usual support, would not be able to make a single movement outside the ship. Still others believed that endless space would have an extremely negative impact on the astronaut’s psyche…. In reality, no one knew exactly how space would meet man, including the Chief Designer. The brave souls who dared to leave the cozy surface of the earth could only rely on themselves and the equipment that flew away with them. No rescue systems yet existed - it was impossible to dock or get out of one ship and move through airless space to another. Korolev told the cosmonauts: “It will be difficult - make your own decisions depending on the situation.” The crew, as a last resort, was allowed to limit itself to opening the hatch and putting their hands overboard.

On March 18, 1965, after three years of preparation, the Voskhod 2 ship with Alexei Leonov and Pavel Belyaev successfully launched from Baikonur. After entering orbit, already at the end of the first orbit, Alexey Arkhipovich began to prepare for a spacewalk. Belyaev helped him with the life support system backpack, and then filled the airlock with air. When Leonov moved into the airlock chamber, Pavel Ivanovich closed the hatch behind him and depressurized the chamber. There was only the last step left... Having pushed off gently, Alexey Leonov “floated” out of the airlock. Finding himself in space, he carefully moved his legs and arms - the movements were performed easily, and then he, spreading his arms to the sides, began to soar in airless space, connected to the ship with a five-meter halyard. During a flight over the Volga, Pavel Ivanovich connected the phone in the cosmonaut's spacesuit to the broadcast of Moscow Radio - at that time Levitan read out a TASS message about the first manned spacewalk. From the ship, Leonov was monitored by a pair of television cameras, and he himself filmed using a portable camera. Based on these materials, a film was already edited on Earth. The astronaut also had at his disposal a miniature camera of the Ajax series, capable of taking pictures through a button. It was provided to the crew of the Voskhod 2 ship with the permission of the KGB chairman. This camera was controlled remotely using a cable, but due to deformations of the spacesuit, Leonov could not reach it.

Five times Alexey Arkhipovich flew off and returned to the ship. All this time, the spacesuit was maintained at “room” temperature, and this despite the fact that its outer surface in the shade was cooled to -100°, and in the sun it warmed up to +60°C. When Alexey Arkhipovich saw the Yenisei and Irtysh, Belyaev gave the command to return. However, this turned out to be not so easy - in the vacuum, the astronaut's spacesuit swelled. He himself described what happened: “The pressure in the suit reached 600 mm, outside 10. It was impossible to simulate such conditions on Earth. Neither the dense fabric nor the stiffening ribs could withstand it - the suit swelled so much that the legs came out of the boots, and the hands came out of the gloves. We, of course, assumed that this would happen, but we didn’t think it would be so strong.” A critical situation arose: Leonov in this state could not fit into the airlock hatch, and there was no time left to talk with Earth - the oxygen supply was designed for 20 minutes. Belyaev was aware of everything, but could not help. And then Alexey Arkhipovich, violating all the instructions, independently released the pressure in the spacesuit and “floated” into the airlock with his face (and not his feet, as expected) forward.

Unfortunately, the emergency situations did not end there. After the astronaut returned to the ship, despite the fact that the closing sensors were activated, the hatch cover did not close tightly enough. Due to the constant bleeding of air from the ship, the regeneration system, working out its program, began to build up pressure. Soon the oxygen level in the cabin rose above a critical level. The astronauts did everything that depended on them - they removed the humidity, lowered the temperature to 10°C, but they were still unable to determine the cause of the malfunction and developed oxygen poisoning. When the total pressure reached 920 mm, the hatch fell into place. Soon after, the oxygen pressure in the ship's cabin returned to normal.

According to the plan, the descent of Voskhod 2 was to be carried out automatically, but before that it was necessary to disconnect the airlock camera. Having fastened themselves, Leonov and Belyaev carried out the necessary actions, but a strong blow at the moment of shooting spun the spacecraft in two planes. This, in turn, led to undesigned angular accelerations and failure of the orientation and auto-stabilization systems. At this moment, Voskhod 2 was over Australia, and the astronauts had no contact with the Center. After consulting, they decided to turn off the self-timer system and land the ship manually. Until this moment, no one had ever landed in manual mode. After the astronauts began to perform orientation, communication was restored, and the crew requested permission to land manually. Gagarin himself answered them after some time, saying that permission had been given. It is curious that the sight, through which orientation could be carried out, was located at an angle of 90 degrees in relation to the seated astronauts, forcing them to control the spacecraft by turning sideways. One of the cosmonauts, in violation of all instructions, had to untie himself, get out of his chair, lie across the cabin and, looking out the window, explain the position of the Earth to the other.

In the end, the Voskhod 2 ship successfully landed two hundred kilometers north of Perm. The TASS report called it a landing in a “reserve area,” which was actually a remote taiga. Leonov said: “Why did we not find ourselves at the calculated point? We ourselves determined the landing site for safety reasons; all possible deviations shifted the point to safe areas. As a result, at a speed of 28 thousand kilometers per hour, we landed only 80 kilometers from our designated place. I think this is a good result." The astronauts were not found immediately, because there was no search service as such in those years. The helicopters were unable to land because of tall trees, and they were also unable to throw off warm clothes. The cosmonauts spent the night alone in a wild snow-covered forest: “We took out their spacesuits and tore apart the screen-vacuum thermal insulation. They threw away the hard part, and put the rest, nine layers of dederon-coated aluminized foil, on themselves. From above, like two sausages, they were wrapped with parachute lines. We sat like that the whole first night.” The next day, not far from the landing site, a rescue team descended on skis into the small forest. They made their way to the astronauts through deep snow and cut down the forest for a helicopter landing site. Only on the third day were Leonov and Belyaev taken to Baikonur.

The Chief Designer assessed the feat accomplished by the cosmonauts: “The crew of Voskhod 2 was given a very difficult task, completely different from previous flights. The future of astronautics depended on its successful implementation... The flight showed that people can leave the ship and live in free space, work as it turns out to be necessary...” At the state commission, Alexey Arkhipovich delivered a report that became the shortest in the history of astronautics: “You can live and work in outer space.”

In domestic practice, the flight of Voskhod 2 is rightfully considered one of the most intense. At the celebration of the 35th anniversary of spacewalk, the outstanding designer and comrade-in-arms of Korolev Boris Chertok said to Leonov: “You miraculously survived! Everything there was so “raw”, so unclear... After the start, Korolev walked around and repeated: “Where did I send them!” So, congratulations!” By the way, the Americans also planned for man to enter outer space and intended to be the first to do so. The US government regarded the exit of the Soviet cosmonaut into space as another challenge and intensified all its efforts. NASA released information about the upcoming flight on May 25, 1965, and on June 3, Gemini 4 launched with astronauts White and McDivitt on board. There was no airlock on the American device; before opening the entrance hatch, the astronauts had to pump out all the air from the cabin. White “floated” into outer space, and McDivitt filmed him with a movie camera. The American was connected to the ship by a halyard seven and a half meters long, through which oxygen was supplied for breathing.

From 1965 to 1967, Alexey Arkhipovich was the deputy commander of the cosmonaut corps, and from 1967 to 1970 he was part of the group preparing for the program to fly around the Moon (Proton-Probe) and land on the Earth’s satellite (N1-L3). The flight date for Zond 7 was already set for December 8, 1968, but in the end it was canceled due to the lack of development of the carrier and the ship. As a result, priority remained with the Americans, who made a similar flight on December 21-27, 1968. Subsequently, Alexei Arkhipovich was one of two candidates for participation in the program to land a Soviet cosmonaut on the surface of the Moon, which was also cancelled. During the period from 1971 to 1973, Leonov was trained five times as a crew commander for space flights under various programs, but for reasons beyond his control, all of them were cancelled.

In 1969, Alexey Arkhipovich unexpectedly became an unwitting witness to the assassination attempt of Leonid Brezhnev. On January 22, Moscow welcomed the crew members of the Soyuz 4 and Soyuz 5 spacecraft, who had returned from orbit just a few days earlier. The car in which cosmonauts Leonov, Nikolaev, Beregovoy and Tereshkova were sitting was fired upon on the way from the airport to the Kremlin by junior lieutenant Viktor Ilyin, who decided that the Secretary General was in their car. Fortunately, Alexey Arkhipovich was not injured, although Georgy Beregovoy’s face was cut by glass fragments, and Andrian Nikolaev was wounded in the back.

At the end of 1972, the superpowers of the USSR and the USA decided to carry out a joint space flight and, during it, dock ships from two different countries. Each side determined the criteria for selecting cosmonauts independently, but the necessary conditions were: the highest professional qualifications, deep knowledge in the field of technology, the ability to work with the equipment and systems of both ships, excellent knowledge of the language of the partner’s country and readiness to conduct an extensive program of scientific observations and experiments. The Soviet Union was represented by Leonov (crew commander) and Kubasov, the USA by Stafford, Brand and Slayton. Alexey Arkhipovich recalled: “The flight under the ASTP program was extremely politicized. It all started with terrible mistrust. The head of the program on the US side was David Scott. He just told everyone how bad everything was with us. One day I took him to “talk”: “Dear David, you know that we carry out the will of our peoples. We have been entrusted with such a difficult task, and we must do our best. There is no need to look for what and who is bad. I can also tell you what’s wrong with you.” The next time we met, Scott was gone and Cernan was in charge of the program.” In July 1975, a joint flight under the ASTP program was successfully carried out, opening a new era in space exploration. For the first time in history, the Soviet Soyuz 19 and the American Apollo docked, and many medical-biological, astrophysical, geophysical and technological experiments were carried out.

Aviation Major General Alexey Arkhipovich Leonov retired in March 1992. Until 2000, he worked as president of the Alfa Capital investment fund, and then moved to the position of vice president of Alfa Bank. Nowadays the legendary cosmonaut lives in a country house near Moscow, which he designed and built himself.

During his long and eventful career, Alexey Arkhipovich took part in many international congresses and scientific conferences, made about thirty reports, and wrote several books. He owns four inventions and over a dozen scientific papers in the field of astronautics. Leonov is twice Hero of the Soviet Union and winner of many orders and medals, an honorary citizen of more than thirty cities around the world. For over two decades, Alexey Arkhipovich has been collaborating with the Russian State Archive of Scientific and Technical Documentation, transferring from his personal collection unique documents about the joint training of Soviet cosmonauts and American astronauts, as well as many amateur films about domestic space explorers.

Alexey Arkhipovich met his future wife, Svetlana Pavlovna Dotsenko, while studying at an aviation school. Subsequently, they had two girls - Oksana and Victoria. Leonov’s favorite hobby all his life was and remains painting, which the cosmonaut became interested in in his youth. Leonov is the author of over two hundred paintings and five art albums, among which space landscapes predominate, but there are also earthly landscapes, as well as portraits of friends. The astronaut prefers to work with watercolors, Dutch gouache and oils. Leonov also collected a large art library, including many rare books, he visited all the largest foreign art galleries and museums, and was personally acquainted with Picasso. In 1965, Alexei Arkhipovich was elected a member of the Union of Artists of the USSR. His other hobbies include reading books, hunting, photography and filming. Leonov is the owner of the second category in cycling and the third category in fencing, and was professionally involved in javelin throwing and athletics.

Alexey Arkhipovich ends his book “Going into Space” with these words: “Going into space is one of the most difficult operations in orbit, requiring great skill, careful preparation and enormous courage. I watch the current cosmonauts on television, listen to their reports to Earth, and every time I relive my flight. I envy them and wish them success with all my heart.”

Based on materials from the site http://www.vokrugsveta.ru/ and from an interview with the astronaut at http://www.pravoslavie.ru/ and http://88.210.62.157/content/numbers/237/40.shtml

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Publications in the Literature section

Time of the first

The first 108 minutes in space of Yuri Gagarin and the first multi-day flight of Andriyan Nikolaev, the first woman in outer space Valentina Tereshkova and the first spacewalk in history of Alexei Leonov. The best excerpts from the memories of our cosmonauts are on the Kultura.RF portal.

Yuri Gagarin

Andrey Plotnov. In the Motherland (Yuri Gagarin). 1982

On April 12, 1961, the Vostok-1 spacecraft launched from the Baikonur cosmodrome. On board was senior lieutenant of the Soviet Union Yuri Gagarin. The pilot-cosmonaut with the call sign “Kedr” gave a speech before the launch.

“Dear friends, relatives and strangers, compatriots, people of all countries and continents! - I said. - In a few minutes, a mighty spaceship will take me into the distant expanses of the Universe. What can I tell you in these last minutes before the start? My whole life now seems like one beautiful moment..."

Years of training, selection, testing - and here he is in space.

“The ship entered orbit - a wide space highway. Weightlessness has set in - the same state that I read about as a child in the books of K.E. Tsiolkovsky. I tore myself away from the chair and hung between the ceiling and the floor of the cabin. The transition to this state happened very smoothly. When the influence of gravity began to disappear, I felt great. Everything suddenly became easier to do. All loose objects also float, and you observe them as if in a dream. And a tablet, and a pencil, and a notepad... And the drops of liquid that spilled from the hose took the form of balls, they moved freely in space and, touching the wall of the cabin, stuck to it, like dew on a flower.”

Yuri Gagarin spent 108 minutes in outer space - during this time the Vostok orbited the Earth. Gagarin’s charming smile, his hand raised in greeting and his decisive “Let’s go!” all over the world have become a symbol of humanity’s first step into the unknown.

“Well, where will you go,” they told me at the school headquarters, “Orenburg is a good city. You have a family, an apartment, your wife is studying... Why ruin your life?
But I decided even earlier - to go where it is most difficult. My youth, the example of our entire Komsomol, obliged me to do this... I felt like the son of a mighty Komsomol tribe and did not consider myself entitled to seek quiet harbors and cast anchor at the first pier.”

"The road to space. Notes of a USSR pilot-cosmonaut" (1961), chapter "In the Light of the Northern Lights"

Andriyan Nikolaev

In four days (August 11–15, 1962) on the Voskhod-3 spacecraft, Andriyan Nikolaev made 64 orbits around the Earth - this was the first multi-day flight in history.

“The elevator takes me to the top of the rocket launcher. I take a seat in the ship and begin checking the onboard equipment. I'm reporting to the command post. I hear Gagarin's voice:
- Andryukha, no fluff or feather!
- To hell!
There is a minute left before the start. A living trembling began to run through the powerful body of the rocket. The power plants thundered. The rocket takes me high off the ground. As the speed increases, the overload becomes more noticeable. A weight falls on your shoulders, on your whole body.”

“The gravity of the earth. Notes of an astronaut - 3" (1999), chapter "64 orbits around the Earth"

The second time, together with cosmonaut Vitaly Sevastyanov, he stayed in the vastness of the Universe even longer - almost 425 hours, from June 1 to June 19, 1970. The ship circled the Earth 286 times. This was the first flight in the history of astronautics during which people worked in orbit without spacesuits.

“A ship is flying in the blackness of space. The cabin is bright. And in the portholes there is darkness. Only the young moon in the sky and the stars lazily speak to each other in a mysterious language unknown to earthlings. But we have no time for the stars now. Our work begins.
And then the ship came out of the shadows onto the bright side of the Earth. This was my second time in orbit and I saw the sunrise more calmly. And Vitaly is new to space. And he perceived the first cosmic dawn very enthusiastically.
“Andrey,” he exclaimed, taking me by the hand, “look, wow, what a dawn on the right, an amazing dawn! Look, what a sun... It's coming right at me! The sun is blowing right on me! The beauty is incredible!”
I understood his delight, but I still told Vitaly: “We still have time to admire it - there will be so much dawn ahead! Now let’s get to work!”

“Space is a road without end” (1974), part II, chapter “In orbit”

Valentina Tereshkova

Amir Mazitov. Gull. 1964. Yaroslavl Art Museum

Valentina Tereshkova became not only the first woman to go into space, but also the only one to go there alone.

The then captain Tereshkova made her first flight into space on June 16, 1963 on the Vostok-6 spacecraft - she was chosen from five applicants.

“How many times have I witnessed how the impossible became possible. Hearing the last command, I gathered myself internally and tensed my muscles. Just recently I listened to my grandmother’s tales about the magic carpet, then I saw the first airplane, learned about the feat of the first cosmonaut, and now in a second I’ll fly into space myself! As K.E. once wonderfully said. Tsiolkovsky: “First comes thought, fantasy, fairy tale. Behind them comes scientific calculation. And in the end it’s the thought that crowns.” Maybe there was even a second of fear, suppressed by delight. But I remember well: even before the rocket moved, my breath was taken away and my heart was beating furiously. A soldier probably experiences something similar in his first attack.”

Chapter "Forty-eight turns".

She told her family that she was going to a parachute competition; they learned that Tereshkova was in space from the news on the radio. The flight lasted 2 days 22 hours 50 minutes: the ship made 45 revolutions around the Earth.

“Yuri Gagarin was right when once in the “star city,” sharing his impressions of his flight, he told us that when viewed from space, the spherical shape of the Earth is felt. He colorfully described the Earth, surrounded by a pale blue halo. Now I admired this halo, saw how it gradually darkened, became turquoise, dark blue, purple and turned into slate black. Nature did not skimp, wrapping the Earth in clothes of the richest colors, trimmed with a blue border. I thought: it would be nice to dress our girls in silks of such colors!”

"The Universe is an open ocean"
Chapter "Forty-eight turns"

Alexey Leonov

Alexey Leonov. Over the Black Sea. 1966

After five years of special training, on March 18, 1965, two more cosmonauts went into space for more than a day - Alexey Leonov (call sign “Almaz-2”) and Pavel Belyaev (“Almaz-1”).

“There is one more name that I always remember with gratitude. This name is Sergei Pavlovich Korolev. I can talk about him very long and warmly. Our whole life on the space path is connected with this person. We stood in front of our rocket, ready to enter the elevator and ascend to our ship, Voskhod 2. There were a lot of mourners. Korolev was calm and kind. At the start, time is precious. He said just a few words:
- I ask one thing. You, Lesha, just get out of the ship and enter the ship. May the solar wind be favorable to you."

“Solar Wind” (1977), chapter “Course - Baikonur”

During the flight, Alexey Leonov went into outer space for the first time in history.

“Here is the cosmic sky. I am the first to see space with billions of stars, not from a ship, not from a porthole, but through the light filter of a spacesuit! The hatch slowly went up, the window into space opened more and more. I watched with bated breath as the star pattern quickly changed in the dark cosmic sky.
Luke froze, everything was ready to go.
We are approaching the Black Sea.
In my headphones I hear:
- Lesha, start leaving!
- Got it, I'm off!
“If you call yourself an astronaut, get out into space,” I thought.
It was so quiet that I could hear my heart beating. I heard the sound of my breathing.”

"Going Out into Space" (1980)

As the sports commissioners recorded, he stayed “outside the ship’s cabin in outer space conditions for 23 minutes. 41 seconds,” and outside the spacecraft - 12 minutes 9 seconds. Then followed a technically difficult return - first to the ship, and then to Earth - the cosmonauts landed not in the place calculated by experts, but in the Perm taiga. Alexey Leonov described his adventures in memoirs and books for children with his own illustrations. And in 2017 he released a colorful publication “The Time of the First. My destiny is myself...”, which was filmed.

“The first words I said, stepping into the void (I don’t remember them, but they were written down): “But the Earth is round.” But in general, space is, of course, harmony. When you look at photographs of supernova explosions, the “collapse” of galaxies, taken by the Hubble telescope, this is chaos and this is scary. And when I went into space, I saw complete color harmony. Based on the colors, I clearly divided them into the colors of Rockwell Kent and Roerich. When you move from the Sun to night it is Kent, and in the opposite direction it is Roerich. There was music too. On the dark side of the Earth, where there is no interference, I could clearly hear the sound of my breathing and my heart beating. These sounds lined up into some kind of musical narrative. You can compare it with the sound of the theremin and the electronic compositions of Vyacheslav Meshcherin.”

“Time of the first. My destiny is myself...” (2017)

Georgy Grechko

Georgy Grechko speaks to children from the Young Cosmonauts Club. 1982

Cosmonaut Georgy Grechko made several flights into space - the first in 1975 to the Salyut-4 orbital station. And in 1977–1978, together with cosmonaut Yuri Romanenko, he became the first to celebrate the New Year in orbit. For 13 years, Grechko remained the oldest person to go into space - he was 54 years old at that time.

“What's the hardest thing? Weightlessness? Isolation from the Earth, from the family? Emergency situations? No. The most difficult thing, as on Earth, is to tell the truth!”

“Cosmonaut No. 34. From splinters to aliens”, chapter “The most difficult thing in space”

Georgy Grechko was not only an astronaut and researcher, but also a TV presenter, actor and author of several “space” books.

“On the last night before the flight, before going to bed, you just need to watch a movie. You need to calm down, distract yourself from gloomy thoughts and anxiety. When doctors advised watching a funny movie before bed, the choice fell on the comedy “Thirty Three” by Georgy Danelia.
The guys watched it for some time before the flights. But when “White Sun of the Desert” appeared, they stopped watching “Thirty-Three.” Such bright, seemingly win-win comedies as “The Diamond Arm” and “Shirli-Myrli” did not catch on either.
We watch how Sukhov walks through the desert and meets enemies, how he behaves. You know that in space you will experience overload, weightlessness, and danger, which can even be fatal. And you learn from the Red Army soldier Sukhov how to behave in a dangerous situation. Do not lose your presence of mind, you must resist to the end, and you must not lose your sense of humor. This film sets a certain line of behavior, teaches at the same time not to be too tight and not to be reckless. And we are gearing up for teamwork.”

“Cosmonaut No. 34. From the torch to the aliens”, chapter “At Salyut-4”. Signs and “White Sun of the Desert”.

Yuri Usachev

Yuri Usachev with a portrait of Gagarin

The first flight of a cosmonaut from the Russian Federation, and not from the Soviet Union, was made in 1994: Yuri Usachev spent 182 days at the Mir orbital station.

“January 10.
Here we are at the station!!!
The docking went well and after the usual checks for the tightness of the joint, we opened the hatch to the Kvant module. Vasily Tsibliev and San Sanych Serebrov were already waiting for us there. It was a very warm welcome, they presented us with traditional bread and salt on a tray they had made from the lid of a food ration container. On the same tray were three medical syringes filled with something red. The syringes had plastic cocktail straws on them instead of needles; we clinked the syringes together like glasses and squeezed the contents into our mouths. In the evening, Mission Control arranged for us to have telephone conversations with the families. This was completely unexpected for me and therefore pleasant. From a conversation with Vera, I realized that our house was full of guests who had come to congratulate the family on the docking. It’s a good tradition and well done guys for coming.”

Usachev described his space journey every day - everyday things, bright events and extreme situations - there were many of them. In total, he spent almost 553 days in zero gravity, during which time he went into outer space seven times.

“14/07/94. It's been 5 days since we landed!!!
For five whole days we have been living in old - new conditions. There is a lot of movement around us, medicine is watching us gently and closely. This state is unusual and I want to tell everyone around us - freeze at least for a moment, let me see enough. Just a week ago we were living the weightless life of an orbital complex, and they look at us as if we were aliens from another planet. They probably notice our certain detachment from earthly concerns, and it’s true - I’m still there - in space. At the very beginning of the flight, for about a month, I couldn’t believe that it was me flying, that all this was happening to me. Now a reverse adaptation is taking place, and the people around us are changing their attitude towards us a little every day - they see that we, in principle, have remained the same.”

“Diary of an astronaut. Three lives in space" (2014), "Life First"

Half a century has passed since earthlings began to explore space. However, he remains the Great Unknown. This is once again proven by the mysterious surprises in its vast expanses, evidence of which does not appear in open sources.

They say that on March 26, 1991, a descent capsule with American astronaut Charles Gibson, who supposedly flew into space back in 1963, splashed down in the Atlantic.

After NASA's radio contact with him was lost and his Gemeni spacecraft disappeared from orbit, Gibson was presumed dead under unclear circumstances. When the capsule was caught and opened, it turned out that the astronaut was alive! How he survived for 28 years on a ship with a supply of oxygen and food for only six months and where he disappeared from Gemini orbit remains a mystery to this day.

After returning to Earth, Gibson underwent quarantine and medical rehabilitation at Edwards Air Force Base in California. Both the astronaut and Gemini were carefully studied by scientists and specialists in various fields, but this did not clarify what happened to them. Therefore, the NASA representative limited himself to a very vague message:

Charles Gibson is physically well, but he is completely disoriented. He is not aware of his long absence from Earth. The astronaut’s mental state leaves much to be desired, and his words cannot be connected into one whole. When asked where he had been for so many years, Gibson invariably answers only something incomprehensible: “Never again, never again!”

The second such incident, which occurred with astronaut John Smith, was allegedly reported by the popular British newspaper The Sun.

In October 1973, Smith went into space on a ship that was disguised as another satellite launched by order of the Pentagon, allegedly to study near-Earth space. The first three days of the flight went quite normally, but then the ship’s maneuvering and orientation system malfunctioned.

As a result, the astronaut found himself in the zone of action of the so-called radiation belts, which negatively affect not only living organisms, but even equipment. NASA management intended to make attempts to save John, but communication with him suddenly stopped.

After what happened in space, NASA was in a state of shock for several days. The management was the first to come to its senses and strictly ordered all employees, under threat of dismissal, to forget about the cosmic tragedy that had occurred, as if it had never happened. At the same time, the launch of the spacecraft piloted by John was noted in the documentation simply as unsuccessful, and the astronaut was written off as having died as a result of an accident during a training flight.

But the story of the mysterious incident did not end there; on the contrary, it received a new and unexpected continuation. At the end of 2000, an amateur astronomer from the Fiji Islands accidentally recorded an unknown cosmic body in an orbit at an altitude of 480 km and immediately reported his discovery to NASA. There, experts immediately pointed radars at the indicated area of ​​the sky and, after rummaging through the archives, came to an unexpected conclusion: this is nothing more than the once-missing Smith ship, which appeared out of nowhere.

In addition, the ship gradually descended, but did not respond to radio requests. Then NASA decided to remove the object from orbit when it dropped to an acceptable altitude. At the beginning of 2001, the operation to return him to Earth was carried out during the next flight of the Endeavor shuttle.

The returned object was immediately opened, and, to the surprise of everyone present, it contained a safe and sound Smith, but only in an unconscious state, because the temperature inside the ship was close to absolute zero. When they began to gradually raise her, the astronaut began to show obvious signs of life. Specialists in cryogenic medicine were urgently called. They slowly but surely revived the astronaut.

And it soon became clear that it was not John Smith who returned to Earth, but someone who was exactly like him. The first suspicions arose among doctors who, after checking the patient’s condition with his medical record, were surprised to notice significant discrepancies. It, for example, recorded traces of a rib fracture that John received as a child, but the astronaut under study had nothing of the kind. It was also well known that Smith had some difficulty with higher mathematics, and the patient under study was quite fluent in extracting cube roots from 18-digit numbers.

A physiological anomaly was also discovered, namely: the “new” Smith’s heart turned out to be displaced to the right side of the chest, which the real John did not have. Other oddities also emerged. In particular, in the personal notebook that is given to each astronaut before departure, only half of the 100 sheets remain. Moreover, for some reason the imaginary John covered 50 pages with strange small symbols, not similar to oriental hieroglyphs, nor to ancient ideographic writings, nor to the letters of any modern alphabet. IN

As a result, experts came to the conclusion that it was not John Smith who returned to Earth, but a certain humanoid creature who replaced the astronaut. Who did this and why is unknown. And a few days later, the vigilantly guarded alien allegedly disappeared without a trace. Searches for him did not yield any results. However, it is possible that US official circles simply kept the mysterious incident strictly classified and isolated its hero from communication with scientists.

Paranormal investigators believe they know the answer to both cases: both the first Gemini with astronaut Charles Gibson and the second ship with John Smith fell into the so-called time whirlpool.

It is known that our world exists in time and space. With the second, everything seems to be clear. But we have little idea what it means to exist in time. Meanwhile, this is not so difficult: you just have to imagine a stormy river carrying various objects, including houses and people washed away by it. We can say that they exist precisely in this river. So we exist in the flow of time.

But the smooth flow of the river of time, like any stream, can be disrupted. Whirlpools sometimes arise in it, in which the passage of time is distorted. People and objects caught in such anomalies find themselves, figuratively speaking, drawn into the depths of this river, where there is no current, that is, time stops. Then, after some interval, the “prisoners” are thrown to the surface, that is, back to our time. It is possible that cardinal psychophysical changes occur in their bodies. This is exactly what happened to both astronauts.

ANGELIC VISIONS

In 1985, when the Soviet space program was on the rise, and people preferred not to report emergency incidents in space, the unexpected happened at the Salyut 7 orbital station. It was the 155th day of the flight. A crew of three cosmonauts - Oleg Atkov, Vladimir Solovyov and Leonid Kizim - was engaged in the planned experiments and observations. A series of medical experiments was about to begin. Suddenly, the station was flooded with a brilliant orange light, blinding the astronauts. It was not an explosion or fire at the station itself. It seemed that the light penetrated into it from the outside, from space, through the completely opaque walls of the Salyut.

Fortunately, my vision returned almost immediately. The astronauts rushing to the porthole could not believe their eyes: on the other side of the heavy-duty glass, seven giant figures were clearly visible in the orange luminous cloud! They had human faces and bodies, but, in addition, behind their backs they could see something translucent, similar to wings.

All three cosmonauts were people with a strong psyche, who passed all kinds of tests during training. There was no question of religious superstitions. However, they all had the same thought: angels were flying in space next to them! For 10 minutes they accompanied Salyut 7 at the same speed, repeating the ship’s maneuvers, and then disappeared. The orange glowing cloud also disappeared. Having regained consciousness, ship commander Oleg Atkov, cosmonauts Vladimir Solovyov and Leonid Kizim reported what had happened to the control center.

They demanded a detailed report of what they saw. When the flight directors got acquainted with it, the report was immediately classified as “secret”, and the astronauts became interested in the ground team of doctors. So, instead of medical experiments, the station crew began studying the state of their own health, both physical and mental. Tests showed normal. Therefore, it was decided to consider the incident a group hallucination due to overwork during the five-month flight.

However, the unexpected happened. On the 167th day of the flight, three colleagues joined the first crew: Svetlana Savitskaya, Igor Volk and Vladimir Dzhanibekov. And again the orbital station was illuminated with orange light and seven “angels” appeared. Now all six cosmonauts reported that they saw “smiling angels.” The version of group insanity due to overwork could be safely rejected, since the second crew arrived just a few days before the second “angelic vision”.

Of course, you can attribute what happened to the human factor. You never know how being in space can affect your psyche. However, in the West, a sensation was caused by several photographs taken by the Hubble orbital telescope, which ubiquitous journalists somehow obtained from the American Jet Propagation laboratory. There, in strict secrecy, experts studied the mysterious anomalies captured by Hubble. Seven flying angel-like figures were clearly visible in the photographs! Scientists have not yet been able to establish their true essence.

However, in orbit, astronauts encounter not only mysterious visual visions, but also equally mysterious cosmic voices. The first to report the mysterious phenomenon in October 1995 was cosmonaut-researcher Sergei Krichevsky, senior researcher at the Cosmonaut Training Center. Yu.A. Gagarin and the Institute of the History of Natural Science and Technology of the Russian Academy of Sciences, and also a candidate of technical sciences and a full member of the Russian Academy of Cosmonautics named after. K.E. Tsiolkovsky.

His report states that “all information about fantastic visions accompanied by a cosmic voice is the property of a very narrow circle of people... The cosmonauts transmitted and are transmitting information about them exclusively to each other, sharing information with those who will soon make the flight.”

They heard various sounds, including the speech of other creatures, and it was understandable - they were learned immediately, without training. A characteristic point in this case is that the astronaut begins to perceive a flow of information coming from somewhere outside, but when the flow ceases, it still unexpectedly disappears. That is, there is a feeling that someone powerful and great outside is transmitting some new and unusual information for a person.

It also happened, with a very detailed forecast, and anticipation of future events - with a detailed “showing” of threatening dangerous situations or moments that - as if with an inner voice - were especially highlighted and commented on. At the same time, they heard: they say, everything will work out, it will end well. Thus, the most difficult and dangerous moments of the flight program were anticipated in advance.
There was a case that if not for such a “prophetic vision”, the astronauts could have died.

The accuracy and detail of dangerous moments is also amazing. Thus, the voice predicted the mortal danger that awaited the astronauts during spacewalks. In the prophetic vision, this danger was shown several times and commented on by voice. In a real exit, when working outside the station, all this was absolutely confirmed, but the cosmonaut was already prepared and saved his life (otherwise he would have flown away from the station).

There is no point in guessing who is the intelligent entity that the astronauts come into contact with. There is no necessary data for this yet. We can only quote the words of one of the astronauts who heard someone else’s voice: “Space has proven to us that he is certainly intelligent and much more complex than our ideas about him. And also the fact that our knowledge today does not allow us to understand the essence of most of the processes occurring in the Universe.”

Ivan Chipurin