Public Loneliness: Yuri Gagarin's Circumlunar Flight (4 page)

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!